Lilies of the Field – a poem by Mary Ellen Shaughan

Lilies of the Field


A diaspora of day lilies sprouted
in random clusters beside steel
girders over which a train runs 
every morning at four.
There they huddled, 
their cheery orange heads 
whipped sideways by the 
hot rush of the train’s engine 
until that day in early summer 
when I uprooted them and 
brought them back to my 
waiting garden, where they have 
lived and multiplied for a decade. 

I do need to keep an eye
on the youngest generation, 
though, as they are showing
a proclivity to wander.

 

Mary Ellen Shaughan is a native Iowan who now lives in Western Massachusetts with her beagle, Zeke. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and magazines and in her first collection of poetry, Home Grown, which is available on Amazon.