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Camassia
Nadine Fiedler

this land we walk on
this May day
of sun after cold and rain
preserved for us all
to immerse ourselves
in forever

between basalt that rises
as cliffs as boulders
rocky volcanic home

to waves and drifts and clouds
of camas flowers high
on their stems spiky, blue
we look till we are
saturated

and turn our heads to
the sky, a different blue
to feel the sun our faces
shadowed suddenly
by vultures circling
flying close we can see
their faces
they patrol for the dead
which we are not
today

electricity of wind of leaves
of oak and poison oak and ash
electricity
of yellow green blue pink
traveling
through our eyes and feet
alive, we are so alive

—
Nadine Fiedler has had a long career in communications and as a freelance writer and editor. Her poems have been printed in Sky Island Journal; Cirque; the Oregon Poetry Association’s yearly journal; and in Windfall: A Poetry of Place, and she was an invited reader at the Portland Winter Poetry Festival.

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