Starry Solomon’s Plume

Starry Solomon’s Plume
by Paul J. Willis

(Maianthemum stellatum)

Starry, starry Solomon’s plume,
your constellations float

in clusters lowly wise,
zig-zagging asterisks of light,

reminding thick and shaggy cedars,
though they breach the nether skies,

that even smallest things may be
arrayed on earth as they are in heaven.

—North Cascades National Park

—from Deer at Twilight: Poems from the North Cascades