Of Wayside Flowers and Grasses

Time done Ptolemaic,
Cyclical, nested, epicyclic,
Miniature seasons

Within seasons, that’s how
The grasses and flowers keep
Progressing by this wayside

At altitude—seasons of days
Of pallor, yellow, green,
Of pink and red, of tassels,

In succession, disheveled
By constantly shifting breezes,
Only orderly if you count

By years, year after year,
And why do you? One spring,
Taken alone, is best

Drunk random, the scatter
Of purple dusk in spiky cactus,
The silver sprawl tossing

Like water in the wind
And then gone the next morning,
Or tanned, or golden again.

Poor Ptolemy, taken by faith
Nothing to do with him, neither one
Enough respected for the sheer

Fecund delight of such effortful
Symmetries, the superfluous
Creativity so much failure finds.