Portrait with Vascular Plant

Fern Ledge, Peggy's masterpiece, I saw just once 

after she'd moved away from the soft explosion of plants

she splashed onto my screen for years during calls. 

When I visited her some thirty miles from those Elysian Fields

the key codes to the property screamed incessantly 

for the police and alarm company. I was waving the phone around

to catch reception in the deliciously lonely woods. I wanted to go in

and see my framed drawings done for her, I wanted the quiet 

she had curated. But no hope. There was confusion about

the doors, the windows. What held fast were the ferms, self-

replicating through spores, rooted and flowerless. Spawning 

gameophytes, heart shaped plants that produce both sperm and egg.

I found myself in the carnival of horticulture Peggy made

to be alive among the greens and feel that water spontaneously

erupting down and rinsing the plant life. As we have outlived

mere recollection, her joy in the ferns, the fauns, the seeming

quotidian of earth rinsed by rain turns magical again.

Turns to Peggy of the eternal and accurate imagination.