In Season

Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light,
Roethke wrote. False. Or true. What can we know?
Colchicum crocus hum a quiet tune:
in spring push up green spikes, then soon die back.
Below ground, blossoms hide til Labor Day,
then emerge cross-hatch pink on ghostly stems.
What clock keeps their time? What chemistry can
measure the cicada’s seventeen dark years?
How does the bean seed know which way is up?
The keeper of life tracks us humans too,
each one in season more alike than not:
from the darkness of the womb into light.
To bask in sunshine, grow, flower, and fruit;
yellow, wilt, recede, go to ground─decay.

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