Poetry Vault: Desert Flowers

By Zach Hively

Sometimes, I like to offer a glimpse into the inner workings of a poem, or provide a bit of story around the margins.
This week, though, the poem is here. Just like the flowers are, right now, in northern New Mexico. And beauty does not always emerge gently.
Here you are:

Desert Flowers
 
It's a good year
for wildflowers
 
but not
for metaphors
 
about gentle rains
and deep roots
 
or patient seeds
biding their time.
 
These flowers
do not unfurl,
 
groveling and grateful,
where they may.
 
They claw
without claws,
 
scrabble
without toes,
 
fight tooth
and nail
 
without--
you know--
 
just to explode
themselves,
 
bleed swagger
with every violent
 
scrap of hard-
claimed, luck-
 
granted cloud.
They burn.
 
They burn,
and no one
 
asks them
"why here?"
 
because
where the hell else
 
and desert flowers
don't need
 
to talk back, don't
need to punch
 
your throat or
break your heart
 
to dig their roots,
bide their time.

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