Winter Seeds

white bursts of silk

on a hardened winter prairie

seeds for a second lifetime

I found these white tufts of silky, cotton-puff seed on a shrub the other morning. I assume this is a rabbitbrush, although it's hard to recognize it without the distinctive bracts or yellow blossoms. August through October is the flowering season for rabbitbrush. Their seeds mature in August through September.

The Flats are as dry as an empty ocean bed; the gray grasses remain fixed in their usual dormant state, wind whistling through their iron-hard blades. In some ways, this looks like a merciless terrain, but this land has given me the chance to start a new life.