I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with one of my favorite native plants this year. Blue Grama is Colorado’s state grass and a real beauty. The prayer-flagged stems look like musical notes on a staff, the blooms like purple eyelashes. The grass is said to predict the severity of the coming winter. The more lashes, the more cold and snow. I wear this plant on my skin, having had it tattooed along with a line from one of my favorite Wendell Berry poems. This year I discovered just a few of the newly emerging purple blooms in the only remaining green grass on Buffalo Grass Trail – our private name for our “green” belt trail. But at least I did not miss them completely.
I will serve the earth and not pretend my life could be better served. My life is only the earth, risen up a little way into the light, among the leaves – Wendell Berry from The Morning’s News