Secret lily

Beneath the arms of a redwood, within it’s limbs hanging down, it is not the rain that finds me, those pearls stringing down from the grey-clotted sky.

Rather, like the way of oiled water slipping down a loon’s back, the tree takes in the world first then hands it down to me, drop by drop, as I squat looking for what’s left of a tiny wild lily I stole from a friend.

Fetid adder’s tongue. A horrible name for a flower, for the delicate stem and the three burgundy-striped sepals, little fluttering scarfs in suspended animation.

It sprouts a little earlier each year since I planted it beneath this redwood nearly 17 years ago.

Blooming for more than a month now (which is odd but happy), the speckled leaves have grown big as my palm. They eclipse the threadish stems, some still standing, most drooping, all headless, except for a single blossom holding on for one more day. I see you.

A grey puff, a little cloud surging and swaying around its stamens, is in fact a cluster of black specks, murmuration of minute insects, fungus gnats, that you would never notice unless you crouch as a toddler, bending spine and head into curiosity, or balance as a women wanting joy, willing to find it anywhere.

The redwood towering over us, more leaky hut than tree, feels safe. This gnatty cloud hovering, undulating, fluid, is a show, a rain dance. I listen for gnat music, some call and response from the damp flower.

Crackling, tapping, there is only the collision of falling water finding forest and wild floor.

The fetid scent is for them, the gnats. Like an old marriage, the flower and the flier have a relationship, an understanding, part love, part truce. The gnats sip a secret nectar. The flower loads flecks of yellow pollen onto wings.

Seen or not, this is how everything goes on, spinning through season after season. You and me, too.

Every moment an agreement, yes?