Wildflowers

A kind of love letter. This one, about little loves. And somehow I go long and sentimental.

Spoken version: About 12 minutes, with photos of wildflowers.

Written text:

Wildflowers

Bert Haverkate-Ens

Perhaps a simple salutation would suffice for a beginning. ‘My dear’ and then would follow a long ellipses.

But I thought of you. And only you, however short-lived was the glimpse of your eyes looking into my soul. I was wandering in an alpine meadow in the high Colorado Rockies. Old enough to think clearly about the difference between wildflowers and women. But it seems that my emotions had yet to catch up with the rest of me.

There was such a profusion of wildflowers among the grasses. Over the years, I had hiked at these elevations before. Maybe, this year had been a good year for rain. Maybe it was simply the season. It was late July.

But my mind slipped from seeing the field to seeing wildflowers one by one. I knew only a few by name. And then a kind of flower I had never seen before caught my gaze. And then another. And another.

And then it was you that I missed. I suppose it sounds silly. I was only to be gone for a week. And in truth, I often didn’t see you for longer than that when I was at home. And then it was not much more than a smile and a word or two – some change from a few bills in my hand – and then often I would simply stare out across the street until only a few ice cubes remained in the bottom of my egg creme.

Of course, it wasn’t that. And it was not just you. But it was only you, for a moment. You have multiplied my feelings of care – added to my heart’s list, truly, one at a time. And so, when I walked alone in a meadow filled with wildflowers, I thought of you. And in the mix up of names and faces, I thought to match the flower’s faces with the names of women who had brushed up against some soft spot in my heart. I couldn’t do it. It’s not that it was so silly a notion to match the species of wildflowers with the faces and lives of human beings. I simply couldn’t keep all of it in my mind at once.

I could have been anywhere. But I wasn’t. The sky might have been blue, but it was gray that morning. I walked on a slope, a road gouged out above where I stepped. There was some dew. The ankles of my pants were getting wet. And then the wildflowers reminded me of some baristas from more than 500 miles ago. Young women making drinks and sandwiches, waiting for the rest of their lives to begin. And you.

I thought for a moment of my mother’s face. Her’s was a great love. And now her’s and my father’s face will never be before me again. That should have been the sort of thing that was stirring my feelings. Or the face of my other great love, only just out of my sight for the time being. But now – and I am slipping again back in time – now that I am walking among wildflowers, why should I want to see your face? Why does such a little barely apparent longing grow to fill my heart?

There were some wildflowers called asters, I think. Round circles of lavender rays. Already loosely bunched for picking, but they wouldn’t be separated from the earth by my hand from the cool and fiery field of other flowers. And Indian Paintbrush. An orange so brlliant it seems to become red. And then, already I was running out of names and one after another there were more wildflowers. I had to look away or lose my mind. Maybe my heart. I confess, I don’t even know what those words mean.

This is not heartache. It is heart over-flowing. If it sounds like nonsense on this page, the feeling still seems right – if at the same time, somewhat lacking in propriety.

And then time passes. A day or two later, I am back on the road again. Heading for home.

And now I shall miss the wildflowers I could not name. And another very early morning, the bristlecone pines, stark black, reaching up against a starry sky. I shall only be able to recall that I had seen Orion’s belt, three stars rising straight up in the east over the hard black ridge across the valley. And another time, the pyrite glimmering in the rocks in bright day.

The very same sun and stars will shine on me when I am back home, of course. But not quite the way I saw them on that singular morning. And surely, context matters. And, you see, each star also seemed to want a name as well and I couldn’t manage it.  There is a constellation or two that makes me think of people that I love. And there is one that makes me think of you.

And so, perhaps, I will also miss that early morning leftover patch of snow on Mt. Bross, reflecting the gradually lightening sky into my eyes. Or perhaps the snow reflected the half-illuminated moon. The very same moon – a singular moon - reflected in a pool of clear water, rippling away when I reached for it.

I was only passing through the Colorado Rockies. And yet, for a time, heading toward home, I would still miss the sound of water murmuring through beaver ponds.

But as the prophet saith, the grass withers and the flowers of the field fade.

And one day back home one of the baristas I hardly know and yet have known enough to care about will make an egg crème for me. And I will sit at the stainless steel counter daydreaming of wildflowers far away.

I think that maybe love is only like this, after all. I practice caring by taking baby steps. And now, I suppose, it may have come to what Emily Dickinson wrote ages ago, the heart wants what the heart wants, or else it does not care.

If so, I think that it has indeed come to only this or that and the other thing. I will miss the boulder in the middle of a snow-melt stream, interrupting, briefly, gravity’s law. And I can hope that my high-altitude sunburn will hide the flush in my cheeks when I see your eyes that I had missed seeing a little when I wandered alone among the wildflowers.

On another day, I shall push through the coffee shop door. Pay me no mind if I tell you that your eyes remind me of asters. They are not even the same color. Nor are they yellow-centered. Rather your pupils are closer to the color of the bright night blackness, luminescent – only deeper, somehow. That could hardly be possible. But I have yet to measure forever.

I do not wish to flirt. I only care about you and all of the other women who have a claim on my heart because I do not know how not to care - sometimes. Often, only for one at a time. I do care. I’m not sure that better understanding would do me much good. Perhaps, I am but a fool. But I do think that the word ‘pathetic’ might perhaps be reserved for those who cannot care for pyrite, let’s say. Or if I felt no twinge over wildflowers, death may just as well come sooner as later. Of course, I could not take all of those alpine wildflowers with me – or you. I did press a few of them in a book. And I most certainly have some very dear loves so close to my heart that I will try to hold onto them. But there are all of these little loves scattered about. And you. All I know is that my heart only wants to see you once more again.

I am still only taking baby steps although I am old enough that some people think I should know better. But when I manage to care about the way your eyes change as you look over your shoulder hearing the sound of the front door bell as I push my way through, it is but a single aster. Something to live for.

I will not weep over spilled milk. That would in fact be pathetic. But that faint band of uncountable stars over head was not the same thing. And among the wildflowers, I really only missed you just enough to pause for a moment.

And the chocolate syrup in the bottom of a glass is only black.

Maybe I shall show you a photo of some of my lost loves one day. The Indian Paintbrush, thriving among grey boulders. You surely must see that wildflower one day for yourself. If it were merely orange-red, how could I possibly care about that?

One night, early morning, I walked alone in my moon shadow. And one morning, night gone, there was a clear, blue sky. And it was not all of you, even most of you, who walked along on that pathless path with me. Yet some part of you must have been in the wind, or maybe it was in the water. I think that I only missed that infinite part of you that my heart truly wished to see in that moment.  It was you that I missed. Great or small is not the question here.

So if you will look carefully, the angle from the sun shining just right will make the pyrite in the rocks glimmer like silver or pale gold. It will help if you’re not easily fooled by what might be or not be. Attend. And if wildflowers will remind you of small loves or large ones, you’re apt to see beauty wherever you look. Enough to waken your heart, my dear …

Yours truly,