Not aloe or jade, or elephant bush,
the thick skin of succulent. Not yucca,
or enduring cactus, stoic digging root
into rocky crag. The resilience I love
inhabits neither winter nor spring,
but grows in the curt ground prevailing
between: the tender shoot which spears
callous earth though barely dressed
in soft greenness. The contradiction
of gentle leaves unsheathing. No spike,
no thorn, merely the battery of bulb
buried deep, tiny suns startling the snow.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 4.
Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press), and the nonfiction book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she is one of ten poets featured in the anthology In a Strange Land (Cascade Books). Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in RHINO, Scientific American, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, DMQ Review and other publications. She can be found online at www.laurareecehogan.com.
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