Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Mississippi, raised in Texas on a diet of church, the fiction of Walter Scott, and fishing. Spent a lot of time in other parts since, but now live in Louisiana, and still go fishing.
Bonnie Blue
Lupinus texensis
In late March, buffalo clovers’ cobalt
tears pour over the blackland prairie.
From slow twist of collective memory,
color spills into gullies, covers asphalt.
Spears of blooms ruffling in wind mimic
restless flags, woven with pale central scars.
Waves on waves of branded banners incur
spring tide strong enough to lift mythic
stone or pull down half the listing world.
Ruthless remembrance aims to choke
new growth, but raw, wild truth
in blossoms untainted by fire or blood
revokes lost generations’ threadbare ghosts,
to shine in open fields of brilliant blue.
