iris

I was walking on Bald Hill last week. The different wildflowers come into bloom each week now. The purple iris are opening in a narrow elevation band under the mixed conifer/oak forest. They open there blooms skyward for all to see. There is no shyness in them. Their genitals are as brilliant and inviting as a sunrise. Yellow lilies turn their faces toward the forest floor. They are shy, showing us only the soft pale color of the back of their petals. They look down at the small insects and creatures crawling in the duff.

Allee, the pup, flushed a grouse on Bald Hill. She wanders off the trail into the grassy underbrush anytime she hears a bird. I watched her run off and kept hiking, but I heard the thump thump thump, of grouse wings. I turned back to see the big bird land in a lower tree branch and Allee running in circles under the tree. She waited until the last possible moment, before I fully disappeared from view, to run back to the trail and catch up with me, panting and smiling the widest of puppy grins.