Roadside Chicory, enlarged flower (Chicorium intybus). Composite family.
Native to Europe, naturalized in North America. The flowers bloom in the early
morning, and then the same day wilt and lose their color.
(Photograph made during the third week of August, 2000.)

See also from the Picture/Poem collection:  

(1) Fireweed Poems: Songs of Love and Loss: Part I

Native Bell Flower

The pale blue of skies which suffer ever
so slightly from too much exposure,

a faint reminder of the steadfast friendly
face of the exotic chicory, brightening even
the most brutal of roadsides...

   mow it down on hopelessly
   compacted clay, and there
   it smiles and rises again,
   all blossom, all prospect,
   on haphazard, crooked,
   naked stem.

But why the blue bell flower's shy, down-
turned demeanor? Does it know something
about the distant past we can only guess at?

She almost touched it, here, in the chicory's
new found world. Why did she not hesitate, then,
before,

as an ephemeral of spring
appears and vanishes, unexpectedly,
but surely not unnoticed,

   she walked away?

(Can be found flowering a second time (after mowing) along country roads and cornfileds)