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At the risk of being dull I’d like to tell you

the dead nettle is everywhere this time

of year in purple flower like spilled wine

in front of the churches, behind the school,

and creeping down the artificial hill they

built beside the creek bank to keep the

basements from flooding after a rain.

This is interesting to someone’s grandma

or maybe anyone who passes. At the pizza shop

my nephew says he likes the flowers and asks

if they are native so he can decide whether or not

he should. None of us knows hardly anything

about the land and what grows here. We ask

a botanist and she says no, and he slumps down

in his chair. The sun’s out longer these days,

now setting over the parking lot that used to be

a wetland, which is conversation for people like me.

A flock of starlings bursts across the last glow

of orange like a smile and I smile too. I turn

to my nephew to show him this beautiful thing,

these glad creatures who hinder the warbler,

darling settlers who starve the longspur. Bodies

rippling on the sky like a foreign flag on the sea.