Celandine Dandelion | by Linda Rosewood

For Helen on her Seventieth Birthday

Dune
Far west from home
A girl befriends a pyramidal orchid.
She lifts her face in meadowsweet breezes.
Harebells frolic and thin dune grasses draw circles in the sand.
She leaves a whisper on a cat’s ear.
Her true name.

Bog
In a cottage above the fen—the old ocean’s finger—
A young mother cooks bread on a turf range
Setting the heat by the palm of her hand.
She feeds her sons and husband,
Imaging a woman, exactly the right temperature.
On fine days she rides her bicycle west
Down narrow roads toward the bog
Where a bastle house defends gorse against all enemies.
That proud hall, now roofless, paved with sheep shit.
The cellar full of nettles.
Their domination never lasts.
She nearly finds what she came for,
Where flowers bloom for no man’s market.
Mostly heather speaking the women’s purple language.
Once she found a bug-eating sundew.
You adapt when you grow without nourishment.