Thorny

Thorny

She thinks a thistle
is some kind of cactus, I guess because
they are both prickly - or at least some
cactuses are, and all
thistles. I'd like to take her
through Joshua Tree National Park and
out the other side to where the ocotillo bloom
for miles in every direction and we could
look for thistles. Saguaro, yes; thistles,
no. Not there. Here on the edge of trash woods, that's
where they like to grow, and on untended
dry ground among the rye and
chickoree. I'd guess
thistles too are probably
railroad plants. Unlike most weeds, they
I believe are
always weeds; I never heard of their
being cultivated, but they are beautiful just
the same. If by chance I should
get well - or perhaps in my next life, assuming
I'll have one - I'll grow thistles, cultivate them, find out
how many kinds there are and who are their
relatives. Meanwhile,
I'm happy to draw thistles with oil pastels; this one
is about as tall as a three-year-old boy, and bears two
superbly purple blooms, one
just opening and one still a bud. There's a name for every kind of
leaf I know so I ought to be able to describe their leaves but alas,
I don't know the name for the kind a thistle-leaf is; it's long and
jagged and perky and the purple
bloom is about three times as bright as the leaf and
about a third its size. And doesn't it
rhyme with whistle? Before
I left the dining room to come in here and write this, I was
listening to some guy singing reggae on the radio and
whistling reggae; that
is the song
of the thistle.