A Fond Farewell To Summer

Meadows of Wild Iris Elk Mountain, Wyoming

Traveling with a field book we find

the meadows of wild iris, a lake

of blue flags and green blades

waving in the wind's wake.

If these give no one pause

nor cause the happiness

that Wordsworth's daffodils

and Monet's fields can claim,

do they grow unseen in vain

in the clutch of blind

wilderness unowned?

We leave the flowers behind

although we name

them and make them ours.