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Waving the Flag
- Oregon State University Press
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61 Waving the Flag I’ve been thinking a lot about flags lately. It’s been hard, after all, to do otherwise.For example there is the blue flag iris.The name usually refers to Iris versicolor of the North and I.virginica of the East,but I am better acquainted with those wild marshy banners of the old frontier, Iris missouriensis, often called western flag.The sight of a single Missouri iris waving over a wet Idaho meadow last summer put me in mind of an afternoon many years before in the Colorado high country above Nederland. Brillo clouds had come up, closing out the possibility of butterflies.Then, rounding a curve on Highway 7, I beheld a broad lap brimming over with blue. Until then, I had mostly known the fancy irises of my mother’s and grandmother’s gardens, numbering in the dozens. But here I beheld irises by the thousands, just as handsome in their wild simplicity. I pulled over to walk out among them.Each narrow,pale blossom was occupied by metallic blister beetles—shimmering deep blue-green to bronze to purple— jumping each other’s exoskeletons. I’d never seen such a randy, brilliant bunch of beetles in full throat (if only you could hear them!), nor had I beheld such a sweeping field of flags. Then there is the posterior pennant of the white-tailed deer. While visitingVirginia this past fall, I hiked with friends through a tunnel of red maples up to a high stone bald.The white granite of the Blue Ridge held clefts of fern and lichen, clumps of russet scrub oak, vistas of ranked hills in autumn motley, rolling off into every distance. Hawks and monarchs were on the move. Once we left the summit, all the colors bled to browns, yellows, oranges, reds, and lingering greens. I let the talkers go first, so as to take in nothing but the leaves falling, leaves underfoot, their swishes, snaps, and smells.Then, Wham! A cinnamon flicker of fur erupted from a bittersweet brake,chased by a white-hot candle.Once it was raised,I could no more take my eyes off that bobbing, flouncing flag than follow it, as it blazed a way through the autumn wood. TheTangled Bank:Writings from Orion 62 A white flag often means “truce” in human affairs, just as a red flag signals danger ahead. But for other animals that can discern it, red holds subtler shades of meanings: the bitter insect’s “don’t eat me,” the succulent berry’s come-on.When birds flash red, it can spell attraction for mates or repulsion for rival males.Among my favorite flags, the scarlet epaulettes of the red-winged blackbird probably do both.And the“Ocaree!”of the male red-wing calling from atop a cattail never fails to make me stand up straight and salute that flash: a whole cardinal’s red concentrated in one patch of flaming feathers. But nature’s presentation of the colors is hardly limited to reds, whites, and blues. Especially in the monochromatic months, our eyes hunger for hue, and the wait can stretch out. Something tells me that this winter is going to be a long and a cold one.There will be floods, and damage done, and losses; gray will stay till the cows come home, and there are no more cows. When the fog’s dirty cotton dressing finally falls away, we will all be desperate for vital signs. So when they finally appear in the sodden pastures,reflecting the return of the sun from the southern sectors,nothing will be more welcome than the upstart flags of skunk cabbage. Unlike the greeny-purple twists of northeastern skunk cabbage, the western species unfurls its spathes into broad,tall swatches of yellow—the uncompromising yellow of early dandelions, pioneer daffodils, even buttercups. No emblem commands my allegiance more deeply than these, announcing the cycle’s rounding once again. Finally, ushering in solid spring with their full-staff flurry of green, come the ensigns that uphold the security of all life: the leaves.When the soft fresh spears of Indian plum first unwrap their packets of incredible freshness,followed by elder,alder,maple,and ash,the entire citizenry of the land awakens unto erectitude, able to face another season after all.There is no older glory than this. April to August, the leaves in their flapping, waving, snapping, and growing flaggage raise deepening green over the countryside, week...