Walking Flowers Home

The roadsides where I took my walk were solid,
almost, in September flowers, mustard-colored
sprays, purple spikes, and, mostly, in penumbrae
of a bluer purple, asters with gold nuclei.
Those were what lay like a bedspread spread out flat
to the barbed-wire fence at the top of the bank and past.
It had rained. The ranchland looked like spring. Nobody
else walked or stopped here. No harm, there were so many,
so I broke off a few of each to walk to her
and held them in my palm for a half hour.
Though I knew that at the plucking they lost their ways,
in a narrow vase they still looked natural at home.
A day or so, I said, and standing behind
her wheelchair took her face between my hands.