O Star Thistle by Taylor Graham
O STAR THISTLE They won’t sell you at nurseries, noxious weed. But you’re easy enough to find. Through long droughty summers no one waters you, yet you survive. You flourish along roadsides and give a soft jade tint to fields where every- thing else turns bone-brittle, dead and dry. You thrive. Sheep eradicate you. But they’re only an interruption. Now the sheep are gone. You creep through fences, on wind you fly like bees to hive. I crouch, Star Thistle, pulling you up by the roots, your bright yellow flower with a crown of spikes. Shall I call you sister? rejoice at your drive, your stubborn, invasive green? In a landscape burned gray- brown by the long summer sun, it’s you who look alive. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and serves as El Dorado County’s first poet laureate (2016-2018). She’s included in the anthologies Villanelles (Everyman’s Library) and California Poetry: From the Gold ...