Poaching Prairie Verbena

It was thirteen years ago or so. I pulled off to the side of the two lane road by a sunny patch of prairie on the other side of a barbwire fence strung between old cedar posts. I pulled over and hopped out of the car.

The land was for sale: a large plot obviously destined for bigger things. When that happened, the oaks and juniper and grass and wildflowers would be gone, the prairie would be bulldozed, and the two lane road would be four or six with left turn lanes and stop lights and parking lots.

So I hopped out of the car when I saw the patch of prairie, when I spied those prairie verbena exploding in gentle lavender against the green of the grass under the blue of the sky. I hopped out with a garden trowel in my hand and dug up a plant or two, a poacher stealing a piece of the wild.

Prairie verbena don't generally transplant well, so I dug wide and deep, capturing grasses and weeds and other things in addition to the verbena themselves. And then Mother Nature got even with me.

Within seconds a flash of itching, stinging fire went racing up my arms. A rash broke out on my forearms, and it was all I could do to keep myself from scratching them raw. I dropped my specimens in a box in the back of the car, and raced home to a shower. It took days for the itch to go away. And I have not poached a single wildflower since.

...

Today I drove by that corner thirteen years since the scene of the itchy thief. It is one of the last places in this part of town to remain undeveloped. But the land has been platted, and the developers have long had their plans for Home Depots and grocery stores and more strip malls and more parking lots. The bulldozers are coming any day.

I drove down that road that is only two lanes still, and I came to the corner and looked at that same patch of prairie on the other side of the same fence still strung between the same cedar posts. I looked and there they were: offspring of those very verbena, thirteen years later exploding with the same gentle lavender against the green of the grass under another blue springtime sky.

The bulldozers are coming any day, but this time I left the verbena alone.

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