Not Like the Aster
From independence to interdependence
“All flourishing is mutual.” ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Friends, old and new, welcome.
I have just returned from a writing retreat in the beautiful Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. For me, it is a place not too far from home that brings respite from the too-muchness of our times. And since writing can be such a lonely endeavor, participating in a writing retreat offers a chance to find kinship in the company of other creators.
I arrived with a broken left wrist, forced to slow down. Feeling winter in my bones. A southpaw unable to write even my name, I turned to dictation—oral storytelling for the page. For me, a new and different way to call in the muse.
Slowed to listening, I found the mountains speaking back. Somehow, words come easier when I’m steeped in their balm and beauty.
And lately, it is the wildflowers that have spoken to me, even browned, burrowed and buried under winter’s blanket. And after a quiet encounter years earlier, it is the Aster flower that has implanted itself in my imagination.
I first met the Aster at Zigbone Farm in September, 2024, during a forest bathing walk led by poet Melanie Choukas-Bradley, a naturalist and guide who shares stories of the wild. What I thought was a single flower revealed itself as many-in-one— a composite bloom, each petal its own small star.
I returned to Zigbone this winter for a Hive writing residency, deepening work on [Re]member the World, my ancestor memoir-in-progress. Asters, now covered in snow, revealed another truth: what looks like ruined remnants above ground is shelter and promise below.
I recently read these companion poems back-to-back at Zigbone. They trace a shift—from admiring independence to recognizing interdependence—and may find their way into [Re]member the World in some form.
I bring them to this page wondering how they might speak to you.
Not Like the Aster Curled up in my windowsill overlooking fog-covering mountain—lifting. Greens tinged with red and brown. Asters, everywhere. Asters are many-in-one flowers, I’ve learned. Their petals, each one a flower. Festooned medallions at center, with a crowning array. It’s how Aster propagates, each to itself, unlike us. I admire their independence. Cleaner than our own messy, human entanglements. Our games: “Should I, should I not”, as Love is cooling, icing up, cracking; too stiff to bend. O, to bend like the river birch whose bark peels away to nakedness, who sheds limbs easily even while shooting new sprouts, leaves waving merrily in the breeze, roots shooting to underground stream, drinking in eddies, thirstily gulping up life. But we—we forsake thirst to satisfy Love, tho’ Love’s pursuit may lead to poisoned wells when Love begins to stink. Not like the Aster at all. Penned at Zigbone Farm Sabillasville, Maryland September 26, 2024
Like the Aster, Never Alone A swirl of snow, Bombogenesis they call it. I am again tucked into blue mountains, a phantom ridge cresting rolling farmland dressed in white and fog and ice. Asters blanketed, resting inside the memory of many-in-one flowers— dried stalks—winter shelter for bees and wasps to huddle inside their hollow, dead stems and caterpillars, whose larva will pupate in nearby ground, spiders and beetles embraced within its stalks. Or the Eastern black swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes, a summer batman of a butterfly mimicking its doppelgänger– that one deadly to birds— its winter slumber in a chrysalis nesting against Aster’s dead stems, clinging for dear life. Waiting out the storm under Aster’s residues. A wonder how each phantom petal knows Spring’s unfurling becomes each one a flower? How does Aster weather the white whirling flakes billowing around its brittle medallions that shape its heart, barely bearing, barely breathing? Does it recognize this sky covering crystalline snowflake—six-pointed, singular, its fall congealing into ground? One floating. One rooting from seed. I admire Aster’s letting go. Trusting the turn in season without fear of extinction. Entangled below ground— no, “to be’s or not to be’s.” Accepting Nature’s cooling, icing up; a petaled Persephone under ice. While we, nestled indoors— we wonder: if we were Aster, or Aster us, how would we wait to slake our thirst? To trust the passing of the storm? To extend caring roots into mycelial darkness? To be like the Aster— Never alone. Penned at Zigbone Farm Sabillasville, Maryland February 21, 2026
Writing a poem isn’t always a Shakespearean tangle of rhyme and word scheme. For more poetics at play, see how you can turn your shopping list into something else.
Robin, my favorite quote of all time, "All flourishing is mutual."
Beautiful. I will be back, dear sister.
I like where you get to in these, Robin, honouring the paradox of letting go and being ever in connection. Thanks for helping me see Aster in new ways.