Wildflower

by Boudica Gast

Wildflower – there are wild things around you

a tangle of thistles and a web of thorns

now you can’t go outside, like the gloom-monger warns

well, what do you know?

now you can’t get your space to grow

between the growing gloom

of the claws and the fangs

of the force of the forest and

the panic of the ant gangs.

Wildflower – what do you know?

not much more than the radio

not much – if you let it wilt you too

there are wild things growing around you

and there –

in the undergrowth

the glowing eyes of the mulberry, marmalade monster

under your bed

in your closet

in your head –

a blank space in your scheme of things

these lonesome days the night-time brings.

Wildflower – do you know

Where there’s rays of sunshine

you can grow.

you be yours and i be mine,

lonesome between the brambles and the briars

but blooming on the snow line.

Well, what do you know?

there you go –

through the thistles and the thorns

we’re better and bright

lonesome wildflower

you’ll be alright.

Boudica Mae Gast, Class of 2020, is a Literature major from Voorburg, the Netherlands.

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