Mayapple

Podophyllum peltatum

I’m trying to get lost somewhere south along the mountain when I break through a tangle of fox grapes & stop short:

an insurgent sea of mayapples bobs in the breeze, a minature forest. I remember the stories I’ve heard about human-shaped roots

& how they’ve yielded a new weapon against cancer. I think of them crowded together in the stoney dark.

We who eulogize private virtue & small acts of kindness, have we forgotten the glory of the grand gesture? I stand

as immobile as that line of tanks at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, unable to go farther without crushing one or two.

Their parasols make a brave show, but they keep their faces down & their yellow focus on the fruit they know will come, if only for a few—

fruit that may or may not be digestible, flowers that may or may not self-pollinate, depending on the encampment, & insects that may or may not visit,

since the mayapples offer neither nectar nor desirable pollen, & seem to persist because a few bees bumble & forget where they are.