Pilgrimage
Taking the Cadmus Road is to notice edges,
that thin line where road meets cracked shoulder,
where gravel tumbles ditchward, yesterday’s water
gone to cracked green slime, the frogs resting
under the compass plants like still life.
Follow the turnings to where year after year
butterfly milkweed blazes red orange and the
spent yellow of St. John’s Wort browns. On the
Outlook Road, see where chicory marches, blue
sentinels with raised bayonets. Deeper in the
fields, Queen Anne’s lace begin to tie itself
into green granny knots of seed, only to unfurl
again come late fall. Beebalm rides the limestone
ridges and trumpet vine climbs high to cradle
tiny nests of hummingbirds. Gravel dust spun up
from the hay trucks and combines sifts from every
leaf. A solitary Swainson Hawk sits the round bales,
even as purple prairie clover and Deptford pinks cling
to a tiny oasis below the dead maple. Without thinking
we label along with Linnaeus and countless others, in
pilgrimage along these roads. We call friends by name.