Red Rue

We imagined that flowers
could change their colors
red
becoming a pulsing figure
so that it was a myth,
something to search for
and then there were the rewards.
If you found it you would
also find your match.
If you found it you would
also find luck,
but our hands are black with soil,
but our bare feet
are bloody with the earth.
We wrote songs about it.
If we couldn’t find it in real life
to stand in vases on windowsills
we could find it in the words
sung to the guitar
while I waited for a ride home.
The search too much
so that maybe that was the purpose
of looking,
to find myself
in the place I started.