Winter Wildflowers

 

Canes of brown

 bending towards 

     the clean whiteness,

Adorned with dried gray flowerettes

  at the end of

      thin, fragile shoots,

Fluffy parachute seeds

   still clinging to the

       vestiges of summer beauty.

As I followed my husband’s snowshoe tracks, I noticed a trail marking sign peeping over the edge of the inches of snow. We were on the Wildflower Trail.

I chuckled to myself- “Yeah- sure! Wildflowers in winter, I wish. Now all I will see is a blank palette of white.”

We progressed down the trail towards the ice crusted lake. Alongside our steps, brown and gray stalks shivered in the winter wind. 

I carefully stepped close to a delicate brown stem and paused. There were remnants of flowers opened wide looking like tan daisies with darker brown centers. Some even had tufts of white, fluffy parachute seeds still holding fast to the plant that produced them.

I immediately grabbed my phone to capture this unexpected beauty right in front of me. Winter wildflowers do exist and still offer beauty to those ready to behold it.

I guess that the trail is correctly named.