Starflower

Starflower by Jennifer Schlick
Starflower by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Trientalis borealis

Seven stamens twist
like one-legged strangers
at a station, anxious to avoid
each other’s gaze.

The train hasn’t come,
might never come.
The snow gives off a radiance
like a face at the bottom of a well.

The platform shakes
on its slender stalk. We are
in this together, & the stars
are closer than we think.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Jack-in-the-Pulpit by Jennifer Schlick
Jack-in-the-Pulpit by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Arisaema triphyllum

This is no pulpit but a pit,
almost a gullet, clogged
with corpses of those that wouldn’t fit
through the exit at the base of the spathe.
It generates its own heat
& a faint scent said to resemble rot
or stagnant water,
attracting fungus gnats
to the minute flowers on the spadix,
which might be male this year
& female or unisex the next.
What church could stomach
such license in the pulpit?
But then we learn how the raw
corm burns, blistering the throat,
its raphide needles causing
agonies in the gut. Only drying
or a slow roast can tame its heat.
This is pepper turnip,
dragon root, devil’s ear.
This is Jack & the candlestick together,
fire & brimstone & the unclean lip.

White Trillium

White Trillium by Jennifer Schlick
White Trillium by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Trillium grandiflorum

They lit up the hillside
under the young maples
& tulip poplars like
a harbor full of sails

or a hundred thousand bodhisattvas,
three arms extended
in a mudra of grace

to the gardeners who came
with surreptitious trowels
& the deer with their yellow teeth.

Trillium Trail has become
a veritable Sarnath.
On any visit now

the white flag of a tail
floating among the trees
is the only lambent thing.
May all beings awake.

*

Notes: A mudra is a symbolic or ritual gesture in Buddhism. Sarnath is the deer park where Gautama Buddha gave his first teaching. Trillium Trail is a real place just outside of Pittsburgh.

Yellow Violet

Yellow Violet by Jennifer Schlick
Yellow Violet by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Viola pubescens

Long after the yellow funfair tent
with its sudden shower of pollen
& its sweet prize has been packed away,
after the bees have gone
in search of other diversions
& the forest has grown dark & thick,
the violet hosts a quieter, stranger sideshow:
the cleistogamous flower, a tent
that never opens & admits nobody.
Like a Wall Street investment firm
writing I.O.U.s to itself, it has
all the magic it needs
within its green inviolate room.
We may infer the success of its transactions
only from its conversion
into a new instrument,
with contents set for future release—
a hedge against all the vagaries
of spring & commerce.

Hepatica

Hepatica by Jennifer Schlick
Hepatica by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Hepatica nobilis

Above the road bank where
the hepatica has just come
into bloom, carrion beetles
clamber through the quills
of a dead porcupine.
Spring azure butterflies ring
what’s left of its mouth—
a void spanned by a pair
of yellow rails—
& ignore the blossoms
swaying on their downy stems
in all the colors of the sky,
white & pink & blue.
The snow hasn’t been gone a week,
but already life & death
seem far apart. The rusty leaves
that lasted the winter out
are relaxing into the earth,
& soon will be indecipherable
even to the most ardent follower
of the doctrine of signatures
in search of liverleaf,
or those who seek respite
from dreams of snakes.

*

An earlier version of this poem appeared in a post from April 17, 2006.

Trout Lily

Trout Lily by Jennifer Schlick
Trout Lily by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Erythronium americanum

How did
this trout
escape
the stream?
It’s not only
the leaves—
ichthyomorphic
& mottled,
glossy as fins—
but the salmon-
colored stem’s
leap
& arc,
& the way it falls
with a sun-
bright splash.

Fairy Bells

Fairy Bells by Jennifer Schlick
Fairy Bells by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Prosartes lanuginosa

Their ringing isn’t obvious;
you need the ear
of an anchorite to find them.

Listen for water tricking under rocks,
a black-throated green warbler’s
five wheezy notes.

Look beneath creased leaves
& zigzag branches
for a bell of quiet yellow-green

that flares into a six-pointed star,
anthers facing outward
around a stout style—

all of which must drop away
to swell the bell’s heir,
a scarlet clapper.

False Hellebore

False Hellebore by Jennifer Schlick
False Hellebore by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Veratrum viride

Bright green.
Tight green.
Clasping green.
Grasping green.
Armed green.
Charmed green.
Hairy green.
Scary green.
Ribbed green.
Nibbed green.
Panicle-green.
Planticle-green.
Patient green.
Abortifacient green.
Killing green.
Thrilling green.
Burning green.
Churning green.
Convulsive green.
Repulsive green.
Rain-calling green.
Down-falling green.
Green green.
Black.

*

Note: The Latin name means “true-black green.” The black roots were widely used by Native Americans for apotropaic magic and other ritual purposes. The entire plant is toxic.

Golden Ragwort

Golden Ragwort by Jennifer Schlick
Golden Ragwort by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Packera aurea (A.K.A. Senecio aureus)

Golden groundsel, butterweed,
life root, squaw weed,
uncum root, waw weed,
false valerian, cough weed,
female regulator, cocash weed,
staggerwort, ragweed:
many were the handles
for which you once were plucked,
used as a uterine tonic, an ingredient
in Lydia Pinkham’s famous compound
(mostly alcohol) for “hysteria,”
feeble appetite, irregular menses,
cramps & backaches, prescribed
even to men for breathing troubles,
swollen testicles or sore perineum—
until the discovery of alkaloids
that can damage the liver.
“Life root,” indeed!
Now you spread in peace again
through wet woods & meadows.
Your small suns open
only for the cinnabar moth,
who mines your heart-shaped leaves
with her terrible eggs.

Mayapple

Mayapple by Jennifer Schlick
Mayapple by Jennifer Schlick (click to see larger)

Podophyllum peltatum

I’m trying to get lost
somewhere south along the mountain
when I break through a tangle
of fox grapes & stop short:

an insurgent sea of mayapples
bobs in the breeze, a minature forest.
I remember the stories I’ve heard
about human-shaped roots

& how they’ve yielded a new
weapon against cancer.
I think of them crowded together
in the stoney dark.

We who eulogize private virtue
& small acts of kindness,
have we forgotten the glory
of the grand gesture? I stand

as immobile as that line of tanks
at the Gate of Heavenly Peace,
unable to go farther without
crushing one or two.

Their parasols make a brave show,
but they keep their faces down
& their yellow focus on the fruit
they know will come, if only for a few—

fruit that may or may not be digestible,
flowers that may or may not self-pollinate,
depending on the encampment,
& insects that may or may not visit,

since the mayapples offer
neither nectar nor desirable pollen,
& seem to persist because a few bees bumble
& forget where they are.