> > Foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) is a native flowering plant in the Plantaginaceae family. It is also known as talus slope penstemon and white beardtongue.It is a glabrous (hairless) tall plant with opposite, shiny green, simple leaves, on slender, purple stems. > >  > > The flowering panicle (a loosely branched compound flower cluster or inflorescence) extends to almost one third of the plant's height and has pairs of branches which repeat with two flowers multiple times. The flowers are two lipped and tubular. At the base you can see the white ‘beardtongue’. >  > > Waiting for Beardtongue > > Were you here with me under the tangle > of contrails, we’d wait for the beardtongue, > and I’d show you where the none-too-demure > stands will erupt in the hard places: > the sorry, washed out soil of the hillside, > road cuts, and abandoned mounds of ballast. > > Although I know this stamp of land as well > as a scribe knows his vellum, I’m not > inured to the surprise and ecstasy > of waiting for beardtongue: waiting is how > we measure time here. Not by Chronos, > Kairos, A theory, B theory, or relativity — > > But rather by the exquisite waiting: > first for the gray-green leaves to clasp > the limber, nimble stems, then for the stems > to bear the loads of two-lipped, chaliced white > flowers turning the field into a mural > of serene, white-robed Etruscans. > > In the all-too-brief two weeks when > the beardtongue blooms, I become > the great shirker of obligation, > look askance at my pressing labors, > leave be fields that should be tended > and barns that should be mended. > > For this is the season of untethering > oneself from the dogged troubles of tomorrow; > this is the season of surfeit, when the plain > is aproned in the raiment of beardtongue. > > > Lagniappe > >
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