Iris
The iris are holding up their candles
of purple, blue and white
and waking up the garden another year.
In awe, the deer forego them,
preferring new-green leaves
of oaks to their sweet scent.
If you look close at one you can see
how its petals, soft and curvilinear,
enclose little yellow altars,
how each flower is a tabernacle.
And after hard-fisted wind or long
ropes of rain move through the valley,
the iris stand like towers, shining
and even more beautiful.
All my life I wished for certainty,
for the dependability of deep roots
to sustain me, and the world said
Wait, Wait, Wait.
