I count nineteen white blossoms
which would not be
visible except for
their wiry stems that catapult them
above the grass like
the last white pop
of fireworks, a toothed blast
of leaf below. It’s
the Fourth of July
on the bank of Hinkson Creek
fifty years ago, the powder-
bitterness, the red
combustion, my life, since
anemos means wind, means
change, no matter
that I’ve been held all along in this
thin twenty miles of atmosphere.
The wind’s disturbed
the leaves, rolled the waves,
convincing enough. Each
star of a bloom
is driven upward almost against
its small nature. All it can do
is hang on and die.
Still, it did want to go
as high as possible,
for some reason,
to sway up there like an art object.