Slow Bloom

They planted quick springs all around me
Annuals in loud parade
Blooming nineteen, blooming twenty
Photographed and full displayed
And I stood there green and empty-handed
Every season, every show
Just a stem the world walked past
While everything I was
Grew below

'Cause some of us are rootwork
Some of us are years
Some of us are midnight flowers
And midnight's almost here

Slow bloom
Right on time
Slow bloom
The long vine
Decades down
Now the climb
Open
Open
Watch what took its time

Now the songs come up like crocus
Through the snow of forty-five
All the seeds I thought were sleeping
Were just learning how to thrive
And the quick springs, bless them, faded
Annuals aren't built to last
While the patient roots kept drinking
Every winter as it passed
Every winter as it passed

So if your hands are still just soil
If your season's overdue
The garden keeps a different clock
For the rarest kind of blue

Slow bloom
Right on time
Slow bloom
The long vine
Decades down
Now the climb
Open
Open
Watch what took its time

Forty years of growing
One night of this

Slow bloom
Worth the time
Slow bloom
See the vine
Decades down
Look, the climb
Open
Open
Everything took its time
And arrived

The quick springs never saw it
But the patient ones were up