D’s Bones

It looks like a forget-me-not
my daughter, Ariel, ponders,
but how could that be—
here, at over 5000 feet
in the eastern Cascades?
On our descent I pluck one,
examine its five blue petals and hairy stem,
stash it in my shirt pocket.
Hours later I resuscitate and key it—
an Okanogan stickseed.
I email Air the news,
make the stickseed comfortable
in the rich, sea level chamber
of my kitchen window.
We share a week of quiet reflection
before the hardy visitor
gently wilts
farewell.

What pleasure there is in taking the time to discover a new little piece of the world, in this case a stickseed. The entire experience becomes something akin to a pressed flower in a book of memories.

Ariel and her husband, Dre, and I were backpacking in Teannaway River country last summer, just east of the Cascade crest. It was pouring on the Washington coast, and this was our dependably drier fallback location. We were climbing an old favorite of mine, the ridge above Bean Creek Basin, when the lovely stickseed, not yet identified, waved hello.