Pause by Naomi Shihab Nye
Even though this mentions grass rather than wildflowers, I’m dedicating it to Lady Bird Johnson. Driving the roads in Texas always makes me think of her and I suspect that she was one to pause from time to time…
Pause
By Naomi Shihab Nye
The boy needed
to stop by the road.
What pleasure to let
the engine quite droning
inside the long heat,
to feel where they were.
Sometimes
she was struck by this
as if a plank had slapped
the back of her head.
They were thirsty
as grasses
leaning sideways
in the ditch,
Big Bluestream
and Little Barley,
Texas Cupgrass,
Hairy Crabgrass,
Green Sprangletop.
She could stop at a store
selling only grass names
and be happy.
They would pause
and the pause
seep into them,
fence post,
twisted wire,
brick chimney
without its house,
pollen taking flight
toward the cities.
Something would gather
back into place.
Take the word “home”
for example,
often considered
to have an address.
How it could sweep across you
miles beyond the last
neat packages of ice
and nothing be wilder
than its pulse.
Out here,
everywhere,
the boy looking away from her
across the fields.
