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Wednesday
My friend Rebecca Adams sent me a gorgeous poem to welcome in November. Spring in California, she provocatively contends, begins in November, and “Chaparral Spring” goes on to show how. “Everywhere, rolling brown hills bloom with green,/ A thick new blanket pushing up through dry selvage.”
The reversal continues on throughout the year. In March and April, the chaparral experiences its own version of snow covering “familiar landmarks”—only, instead of snow, it’s orange poppies that
sweep the contours of hills,
verges of roads, pool into bright swaths,
While blue lupine well into gratitude.
In an explanatory note sent along with the poem, Rebecca says (quoting Wikipedia) that the chaparral is “a shrubland plant community found primarily in California, in southern Oregon and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers) and infrequent, high-intensity crown fires.”
Chaparral Spring
By Rebecca Adams
In coastal California, in chaparral country,
Spring comes first in November
With strong winter rains.
Out here, fire’s the first fear.
Golden summer fields have tensed to crackling parchment,
waiting to explode by any little spark.
Winter’s relief from danger. Winter is spring.
Everywhere, rolling brown hills bloom with green,
A thick new blanket pushing up through dry selvage.
This green winter coat stays bare late Fall through February
Except for some wild sourgrass,
A stem with solitary yellow flowers.
But in March and April, the coastland ranges
And all the valleys and wooded foothills of the Sierras
Finally catch up. Now spring comes on like winter.
We watch for wildflowers like you’d anticipate
The first snowfall, thinking how it will cover
Familiar landmarks. Suddenly, it breaks:
Orange poppies sweep the contours of hills,
verges of roads, pool into bright swaths,
While blue lupine well into gratitude.
©Rebecca Adams, printed with permission