The Strawbery Banke Museum

In the garden, lemon day lilies open their lips

waiting to be fed by Puritans who brought them

into New Hampshire and planted all the roads

leading to Portsmouth. Thrifty, New Englanders

dug clumps and transplanted them into this exotic

collection of plants, laid out as if quilted then edged

in green blocks of English herbs. Brought back

by the sea captain who built the widow's walk

that crowns the house, orange field lilies remain

to invade banks of the interstates in July. Too

common to be preserved by Strawbery Banke's staff,

like dandelion roots, they are impossible to erase.