The red ones, ephemeral, festive in time
for early Easter — “Swamp honeysuckle”
Bartram called them, and sketched quickly,
knowing they were close to rhododendrons
he’d found in windbreak coves
where the Appalachian chain shadowed any
thought of spring. Also cousin to highland heather,
and he recalled their name behind the fragrant
momentary blossoms was from the classical
Greek for “dry.” Even as he saw them
across the Savannah River’s soiled waters
as bursts of wildfire inexplicable
in the time of green, he studied the seed
vessels, tasted the root and was sure
the first sap could not long prevent
such loose panicles of flowers from withering.
The branches’ white hardwood opened
to his knife. He found the scent bitter.
Nothing like this existed in all of Europe’s
dark forests or tyrannical gardens, but
he was not homesick, he told his journal,
not Ovid in exile, though all about him
the landscape changed and clouds shifted
so quickly he thought it could only be
the work of a god. Vagrant on this savage
landscape, he did not wish to dwell
in nostalgia for the Passion, the Host
cool upon his tongue or cathedral
echoes, and yet, out there in the Territories,
April looming, shagbark and tulip trees
loosening pollen, sassafras rampant, he found
science inadequate and settled
by the fatwood fire to read Luke’s gospel
aloud. Even mapping his daily transit —
the congress of flood-rich rivers, pinewoods,
azalea-strewn slopes still magical
long after sunset — he could discern only
the Lamb pierced and broken, His suffering
never softened by Latin catalogues
of genus and species. The spread petals,
sudden outcrops of untamed color, his own
fibers tightening — it all taught a single lesson,
the question of estrangement. Secular
in every bone the year before, he had dreamed
of drawing bud and leaf-sheen with a birch
pencil. Now, even asleep, he prayed
for dawn and a sense of mission,
the wilderness a miracle he was meant to list
like Adam, the Adam of plants, though this
was far from Eden and the Swede Linnaeus
had set the precedents. He wished
for subtle pigments to set the heat of azaleas
exact in his ledgers, and that was the first
week out, reconnoitering before the straggling
retinue caught up, before fever,
moccasins, hard crossings and the bewildered
circling. He discovered also four species of biting
flies and a glittering rivulet rising
wild and brilliant from the shadow
of a skull-shaped stone. He could almost
discern the form of Eve dazzling amid sunshafts.
He wrote between calfskin covers, “In a paradise
fallen, I am westbound, stunned by the benison
of azaleas and celebrating Zion alone.”
