Reliable Finery

—Anonymous Photo

MORNING GLORIES
—Mary Oliver

Blue and dark-blue
       rose and deepest rose
            white and pink they

are everywhere in the diligent
      cornfield rising and swaying
            in their reliable

finery in the little
      fling of their bodies their
            gear and tackle

all caught up in the cornstalks.
      The reaper's story is the story
            of endless work of

work careful and heavy but the
      reaper cannot
            separate them out there they

are in the story of his life
       bright random useless
             year after year

taken with the serious tons
       weeds without value
             humorous beautiful weeds.

_____________________

—Medusa