Summer Solstice Blues

1.

I sing the Blues
on the longest day,
but I don’t weigh down,
not with sadness,
not for the rare rain,
I do not bend,
I bobble bluely,
catching every breeze,
setting tables for my friends,
the small bees,
the flower flies
flower spiders,
and beetles.

My blue is the
summer sky,
is a party,
is the generosity of one seed
becoming thousands,
from bowls
of nectar, pollen
and wonder.

I am bluehead gillia.

2.

Native annual wildflowers,
the bounty of their blooms
could make a world of difference,
in your one pocket of it,
to the continued thriving
of all the floral feasters:
the tiny and the bumbling,
the lazy-winged butterflies,
the pollinators who coevolved
with these flowering beauties.

And gillia is an easy one.
No mossy green thumb required.
Just bare ground
and a packet of seeds
and the right time of year
(Fall or earliest spring),
and perhaps some sluggo,
as I learned,
where only one lonely,
but swarming stalk rises.