Janet Ruth
Frangible Beneath the Sun
Desert zinnia (Zinnia acerosa)—Who knew there was so much to say about the lowly desert zinnia? Mounded here beneath my feet on dry, rocky ground in the Chihuahuan Desert. Doesn’t look like much most of the year. Its leaves narrow, almost needle-like, as if it’s been taking lessons from hedgehog cactus spines. Sometimes you have to look closely to make sure it’s actually alive—so brittle and gray-green. But then it blooms! And although nothing like its exotic rainbow cousins in pots on my patio, the butterflies and native bees don’t seem to mind. Like all composite flowers, it has disc and ray florets. The parts we know as petals are arrayed around its face, each petal its own flower, bleached white by the blare of desert sun. A button in the middle, the disc, raises its own wee golden trumpets, each another type of floret. All together they make up what we call one flower—for lack of looking closely. Which reminds me, it is the People who have survived this desert for thousands of years who know the value of the lowliest strand in the web of life. The Keres know that a paste of crushed desert zinnias reduces swelling and aches. They feed the plant to children to help them learn to speak.
planting zinnias. . .
seeking words to heal
the world
About the Author
Janet Ruth is a New Mexico ornithologist whose writing focuses on her connections with nature. She’s had poems published in cattails, Wales Haiku Journal, Under the Bashō, Cold Moon Journal, and Drifting Sands. Her first book, Feathered Dreams: Celebrating Birds in Poems, Stories & Images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018), was a finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. redstartsandravens.com