Adirondack Upland Flora

A book from your college days

tucked next to my Strunk & White,

your name scrawled

on a page in your mix

of capitals and lowercase.

Such precision of bloom dates,

soil pH, and mineral composition,

almost invasive in the details

of the little lives of these plants.

You always said you wanted

to take me to the Adirondacks.

A trip .02 degrees north never made.

It is a prayer of sorts

to touch these pages

of bloodroot and bittersweet,

trillium and nightshade,

paper birch and hornbeam.

I pause on Monotropa uniflora:

Indian pipe, otherwise, ghost

pipe, corpse plant, one

they say can grow

even absent all light.

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Sarah Kilch Gaffney is a writer, brain injury advocate, and homemade caramel aficionado. She lives in Maine and you can find her work at www.sarahkilchgaffney.com.