Tough Zinnias
If you come up the path through time’s
protensity you’ll find me
in this yellow November, a muddle of sun
beside me on the ground. I’ll be lost
in thought, unhappy with the common
marigold’s heavy stink, dreaming of feathery things
with berries. Come intently up the path
through extensities of space.
Tough zinnias come up & find me. Why not you?
They are loud flowers that bear witness
to past waterings by blooming
through drought. I’ll be thinking I must
become something that thrives
in dry weather. Come calmly up the path.
Be so present even eyes dimmed by bitters
can track you into the pastel asters.
Don’t make me wait. I’ll be fidgeting
with the unrest brought on by fatal weather.
What will become of us? I think
our attributes will be engraved inside a promise
ring in a script too small to read.
Come quietly and be undimmed.
When I see you, my eyes will fill
with “really?” I’ll stand there
trying to decide if you are cool enough
to make any trace of warmth
seem welcome or warm enough
to make any residue of cold
negotiable. I’ll say if you’ve come
to tell me you’re going, please go.
Copyright © 2025 by Alice Fulton. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 7, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“[This poem] was influenced by my reading of Willa Cather, whose words about nature and emotion can be very moving. Under the spell of Cather’s quiet lyricism, the poem pretty much wrote itself. As always, I drew upon phrases and words collected in my notebooks. I decided on the title ‘Tough Zinnias’ because it added some edge to the tone with an echo of a rude dismissal. Yet to me it seems a mostly transparent, somewhat mysterious poem of memory and longing.”
—Alice Fulton
Alice Fulton
