They appeared suddenly, a fleece
of yellow, a mustard beard
on white rock,
fluid and arbitrary,
existing as if ordered by Persephone
to girdle the mountain
in crisp abandon,
all light captured and then freed
to eyes accustomed to only green.
So much is seen
at just this level, like a skirt
will settle
about the knees of a kneeling girl.
Receding rubble shaking blooms loose,
irretrievable. And the caught
in a cat’s paw of sun needling through
the nimbus, descending
like blonde blood between hillock fissures.
Flowers at 4000 feet trapped
between
sea level blue and dizzy spring
their trefoil petals dusted and doused
in the rock god’s shadow,
his warm falsetto
piercing the moss and gravel,
all dolor transfixed
by exceptional yellow.