gershon hepner - wisteria

No fair maid of Algeria,
muchacha from Iberia,
has beauty that’s superior
to flowering wisteria.
Some call her purple, some say mauve,
I fancy her, for she is fauve.
Wisterially, I’m feeling chauv-
inistic for her in her grove.
With blossom purple and imperious
she beckons to me, mauve, mysterious,
and draws me to her, mute but serious,
and wonderful and wild, wisterious.

Sierra Madre, CA, boasts the largest blooming plant in the world. A wisteria that has 1,500,000 blossoms a year. Planted in a house on Carter Street in 1894 as a one gallon vine, it is now touted as one of the seven horticultural wonders of the world. The locals call the plant a wistaria, pointing out that it was named after Caspar Wistar (1761-1818) .



9/2/97

gershon hepner

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wisteria-2/