I Believe
the crocus is the state
flower of
South Dakota if
that is it's
the same as the
"pasque"
in Pasque
Petals the official
organ of the South Dakota State Poetry
society to which my mother long belonged.
She wrote
a sonnet
about a
cow
but I don't remember any lines with
rain
red
down
sweetest with ocean
fuck (certainly
not)
mapmaker or pine
Spruce perhaps
since the state tree
of South Dakota
is the
Black Hills
Spruce
& we often vactioned at
Spruce
Lake the real name of which is Spearfish my mother
took me to a poets luncheon at which
an advanced younglady
read cummings'
buffalo bill's defunct ("now how
do you like
your blue-eyed boy
mister death")
which I instantly
knew was my favorite poem
& went out & bought
my first book of poetry The Collected Poems of
Leonard Cohen
circa 1984
I'm still a bit jet-lagged & have to moderate a public conversation tonight & want to take a nap & a bath first, hence a poem rather than a post today. I'll be in South Dakota next week.