Today, like Miss Rumphius,

I scattered lupine seeds across the hill out back, beneath the pines that frame my surveyed world; it is safe to sow here. the slope will not be tilled or mowed or staked for badminton, it is an impractical place.

only readers come here, as if escaping to childhood attics, and philosophers weary of cause and effect, and mothers seeking sanctuary or mushrooms, and squirrels who suffer intrusion with stoic grace;

I sowed in jagged symmetry where nests of earth invited and when the urge said here, planting in the fingerholes both seeds and certainty that we would thrive for eons, and hearts as yet unformed would one day leap to see the brazen pinkly-purple spikes marching down the hill, merging flanks in meadowfern, taking towns and delphinium beds in their relentless siege;

will the vanquished ponder how and why? itinerant wind? greedy bird dropping pods? sparks from Mars? will they ever suspect a woman making mischief on a Sunday afternoon?