Taylor Graham EXPECTATIONS Not much in the way of wildflowers. Just last week, lupine and vetch purpled the shady side of everything green. Now, Bromus rigidus (that’s rip- gut brome) is sharpening its awns; The marianum thistle’s armed with knives. Everything’s dried up. Except, these tatters of pink, not much more than a tinge of color. Scattered, skinny corollas stuck at intervals to a stalk. They stop us to puzzle out the name, the genus, species. Looking closer: four thin petals delicately paired as if split-wings; white pistil and stamen curved like the neck of a swan, if swans came in fairy-size. Without our books, the scientific name eludes us. And so we move on, noting Iridoprocne bicolor, the everyday iridescence of a swallow in sunlight on a barb-wire fence. |