Buds furled tight until they open—purple,
yellow, rose, a sky blue.
The irises grow supple and green
like goddesses.
The goddess Iris brought the souls of women
to the Elysian Fields.
I imagine my soul in a dawn
where the dead are newly alive,
having shed their bodies
and gone to the meadow.
Think of those ghosts gathered in the grasses,
a rustling safety.
Can we trust that all our loves are there
glinting like the dew’s
tiny prisms,
that when Iris comes for us, we’ll stay
nearly in reach of this world?
May our field always be morning.
