Highways and Byways: The Autumn Crocus

By Maik Strosahl

While recovering from my surgery late last fall, we made a trip back to Indiana to take care of some business. We stayed at a very nice Bed and Breakfast in Anderson, near where we used to live and our favorite Mexican restaurant.
    The morning we were leaving, I found some purple flowers just blooming. After doing some research, we identified them as Autumn Crocuses.

    Autumn Crocuses are not real Crocuses, which are a harbinger of spring in the midwest. Rather, these flowers bloom after their leaves have long been forgotten. The plant actually comes up in the spring, but disappears in the grasses that come up around them. Then in the fall, a stem appears with just the flowers. Some people call these naked ladies because there is no leafy part with them, but we have a lily that bears that name around our area.
    For me, these blooms were like a final defiant sign of life from Mother Earth, before the rains turn to flakes of snow, before the last leaves to fall are finally covered with a blanket of snow and the long cold winter keeps us all huddled for warmth.
    Already I am looking forward to the resurrection spring will bring by the time I see the Autumn Crocus.

The Autumn Crocus

And with one last gasp,
she bloomed,
growing blue with the onset of cold,
one last casket to be buried,
one last six-foot hole
dug into the earth before it hardens
under fallen leaves
and the first flakes of winter,
sleeping the dreamless slumber
of those in wait
for the promised rebirth.
_______________
Previously published on Medusa’s Kitchen, November 18, 2020.

Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.