Poems February 2021
Coltsfoot
The coltsfoot is in bloom—
are words no one
has ever been moved to say.
Poking up its fringed face
along the wasted roadside,
through dead leaves
grayed with winter,
coltsfoot doesn’t ask
to be looked at.
Yet here you are,
waylaid by what seems
a stunted, oddly early
dandelion. Its dullness
is a kind of dogma.
You can rely on it.
It won’t tear you up on the inside
with some unnameable beauty—
like a nothing-special
sunset, when the light
just goes.
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 39 Number 6, on page 28
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2021/2/coltsfoot