Poem: Evening primrose

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by Karina Lutz

evening-primrose

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A biennial,
the evening primrose lives
its first year as
a basal whorl,
hovering
close to the ground, hiding
under the taller summer weeds.
Wintering over, it waits for warmth,
then sends up tall stalks that bloom and bloom and
set more and more seedpods along its lengthening stems.

This weed opens its flower at dusk,
shines for the moon, and closes at dawn.
It bears seeds in upright,
open-topped pods,
easily shaken into the palm.

That year, 2002, I prayed for healing
every morning: with low-lidded gaze through the window
towards the garden, I bowed to my flowers with the sun.
Seeing the world as we knew it
begin to collapse slowly, like
the first moments of the twin towers’
melting floor by floor,
I resolved to rely
more on spirit than substance,
and tried to wean
myself from the medications
a decaying civilization is unlikely
to continue to provide.

One medicine stubbornly held on to me:
evening primrose oil.
Whenever I stopped taking the capsules,
my illness would return.

I kept praying: may I be healthy, may you be healthy,
may all beings know peace
.

That summer evening primrose appeared in my garden,
somehow overlooked while weeding the fall before.
Sweet yellow flowers slowly folded closed
as the sun rose.
Where I, too, bowed
to the rising sun each morning,
the evening primrose had sown itself

seasons before I had begun to pray.

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karinaKarina Lutz is a workshop leader, teacher, and sustainable energy activist. She helped found and run People’s Power & Light, a sustainable energy nonprofit. She has been instrumental in passage of environmental legislation in Rhode Island, thwarting a proposed megaport in Narragansett Bay, and rewilding wetlands along the Blackstone River. 

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