(“escape: a cultivated plant run wild” —Webster)

 

Every night they went a little farther.
Restless, too hot to sleep
under the too-bright quilts she had made as a girl
the farmer’s wife imagined she could hear them
slipping away like daughters
over the rough stone wall
across the pasture, onto the lonely hills.
And nothing stayed:
the stars wheeled from her window,
the great pines waited, black, at the edge of the field,
and even these flowers, familiar
delicate umbels and traceries.
Queen Anne’s Lace, brought all the way from England,
refused to comfort her
                                   preferred 
to flaunt themselves in every ragged ditch,
lie down on bare cold stone—
as though in this raw air
a darker seed
drove on a starker, more essential white.to flaunt themselves in every ragged ditch,
lie down on bare cold stone—
as though in this raw air
a darker seed
drove on a starker, more essential white