The Name of the Flower

Field Guide

No one I ask knows the name of the flower


we pulled the car to the side of the road to pick

and that I point to dangling purple from my lapel.

I am passing through the needle of spring

in North Carolina, as ignorant of the flowers of the south

as the woman at the barbecue stand who laughs

and the man who gives me a look as he pumps the gas

and everyone else I ask on the way to the airport


to return to where this purple madness is not seen

blazing against the sober pines and rioting along the


   roadside.



On the plane, the stewardess is afraid she cannot answer


my question, now insistent with the fear that I will leave

the province of this flower without its sound in my ear.



Then, as if he were giving me the time of day, a passenger


looks up from his magazine and says wisteria. 

—Billy Collins

image: Wisteria frutescens flower closeup, Dcrjsr