Wild Blue Sailors - to the Chicory, a blank verse poem.

 

Chicory, Wisconsin, photo by me

Wild Blue Sailor
To the chicory flower
Chicory - also known as coffeeweed, 
Blue daisy, blue sailors, ragged sailors - 
Grows in road sides, waste places, disturbed ground,
But will not venture into virgin land
Untouched by spade or plow, preferring ditch 
To soft garden bed, though it's summer-sky 
Blue would be welcome any place it chose 
To root. When I was younger, I would bike
On roads lined with miles of pale indigo 
Flowers in the farm country surrounding 
My small Wisconsin town. The deep ditches 
On humid summer days were misty with 
Clouds of blue blossoms blooming in the sun. 
Lots of times I tried to gather a few  
To bring home for my mother to arrange
In her knobbley milk-glass vases, though the 
Friction of hard pulling to break the green 
Rope stems would leave on my palms thin stripes of 
Angry red welts. The ones I did manage  
To break always wilted and shriveled fast; 
No amount of water could revive them.
Like all wild things, capture was death assured.

Some beauties won't survive harvesting or 
Gathering, won't endure cultivation,
Cannot be tended, will not be taken;
Enjoy them in passing, not possessing.
Do not gather chicory while you may;
Let them flourish and fill the waste places, 
Fields, ditches; let them remain what they are:
Feral, untamable, true wild flowers.
There is something in us that needs to see 
Beauty blooming beside thorn and thistle,
Wild blue symbols of mercy triumphant
In the ditches that line our wandering roads.