Red-Flowering Currant

(Ribes sanguineum)

Back in 1825, David Douglas
packed your kin on a ship to London,
where sales of their seeds alone
repaid the cost of his expedition.

That was a long trip for them,
through the sandbars at the riptide
mouth of the Columbia, then past
Patagonia, around the Horn.

But here you bloom, beside this trail
on a rocky shelf above the lake,
still missing your ride
to some strange garden across the sea.

—Ross Lake National Recreation Area

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash