Stokes Aster

At Morningstar in August

potted perennials have strewn

roots beyond their containers

and clutch at burlap, other plants,

or the weedy ground below.

I browse among trees grown so tall

still in their large plastic pots

you’d need a crane to move them.

Honeybees simper in flowers,

wallowing in sweets. Their lives,

compromised by pesticides, fungus,

and long dull winters, seem useful

but too monastic to excite me

into fits of figurative language.

They’re working only a few yards

from their hives, white cubes propped

on legs above the reach of dogs—

three goldens and an aging mutt—

that follow me step by step

through the aisles of straining flowers.

Stokes aster stops me. Its flowers

attain a shimmering deep blue

that locks my gaze and stuns me.

I could grow old watching these blossoms

bask in their private glory,

but the dogs nudge me along

to the orchard where brown pears ripen

like swollen leather knuckles

in a dazzle of ranting bees.