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Meadow Grass
For Marie Mellinger There is more to this meadow under the mountains than mere names of fescue, blue Timothy, panic grass, Fox sedge, hop sedge-but my eyes keep coming back to the dark strokes of plaintain, each head as if surrounded by a ring of pale insects, a curious, almost ugly crown The Cherokee called these weeds "Footprints of Englishmen" Wherever the settlers went the plaintain grew, broad leaves escaping under their heels, the wayward wagon tracks grew like dark stars on the banks of a Devon lane seen here against clay of the same colors: oxblood to orange, foxbrush, fernseed, the outrageous rust of men washed into creeks in the runoff of heavy rains mingling Greek blood and Trojan like Scamander in the old tale some settlers had by heart, and more never heard of The roots of red flowers went to the chiefs and warriors Yellow and white were squaw flowers, went to the mending of women Children sucked on the creeping stems of the pea plant and grew eloquent in a language that no longer mattered. It was the settlers' names that caught up with the changing meadows-wort, balm, and bane Gerard and Culpepper claimed them Not the Seven Bark, nor the lovecharm Pipsissewa profited in the eclipse of the Sun Spirit and the Star Maiden only the transplanted plaintain-spear, vinegar sponge, corona of insects only the Deptford Pink, Venus's Looking Glass, Mouse-Ear.... The weed-strong invaders clung like pea plant to the alien clay I would escape a moral if I knew how or remake one if I could stop my wandering The grass changes under my feet. Words, names, change in my mouth under a shifting, mostly indifferent sky