Flowers of Gold

We have received an unusual amount of rain during this monsoon season. The desert has grown green with the moisture, deciduous trees leafing out and grass and wildflowers sprouting. But there is plenty of gold as well. There are great swathes of desert poppies, and the brittlebrush is beginning to flower. But this poem was written to another golden flower: the tiny blooms of sweet acacia, which is the predominant tree in our little patch of high desert.

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Sweet fragrance,
Soft spirit of kind days
And of nights luminous alike
With storm or stars;
Golden sylphs
That dance brief hours away
On ancient mountains’ sides
Whose vast and silent hearts
Still harbor memories of Paradise.