By Holly Day

Finding Me

hesitant, the daffodils

fall back as if they know their kind

is alien here, in the

preserved greenstone steppes once home

to trilobites and scaly

invertebrate worms. only

the hardiest flowers grow

here, those that can make a home

forcing roots through iron-hard

gray granite, or against

the base of stunted jack first.

springtime, and no yellow blooms

against the thin grasses, just

blue and purple flowers spring

from the glacial plains, broken

intermittent by maroon

columbine. sparrows search the

ground to find scattered seeds and

berries among the sparse plants,

among flowers that first bloomed

long before birds sprouted wing.

Holly Day is a travel-writing instructor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband and two children. Her most recent nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Walking Twin Cities.

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