Shanley Wells-Rau

Roadside wildflowers zip by,
bright flashes of color my eye thinks
may be a lost plastic bag or a bit of discarded life.
But no. These oranges belong in this dirt.
That red and that yellow feed the butterflies,
the saddened bees.

Watering, mulch, fertilizers:
none of these are needed.
These natives were here first.
When pueblos were full of condo living
Prickly Pear blooms dotted the desert.
When oxen pulled Europeans westward,
Indian Blankets blinked up through the dust.
When the adventurers came
bumping along in their tin can Model Ts,
milkweeds flashed brightly from the cracked dirt.

Today we speed by rushing from life to vacation
and back again.
They wink at us from the medians
gossiping with one another
laughing at our scramble home
to water and mow, water and mow.