Mary Ann Abbott is an English professor and lover of large vocabularies, excellent grammar, and found phrases. You'll recognize her by her curly red hair and the notebook in her hand, and you'll often find her sequestered in her studio creating collages out of found objects. She loves stomping through the woods to ooh and aah over fungi while collecting rocks and feathers. She loves old globes, handwritten letters, the smell of old books, and secret places.
From The Guide to Garden Flowers by Norman Taylor
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1958
Roadside Weed
Society has terrifying terminology
for these groups of women
but it is avoided here.
Forced for use by a dealer
usually solitary
she is picked up often.
So familiar - to be chosen
more for peculiar interest
than for beauty or intellect.
Classed and designated by
color, height, culture, variety,
ease or difficulty.
Offered under an incorrect name
wiry, stiff-stemmed, ashy, coarse,
crowned purplish or reddish
and permanently white-felty
on the underside.
Unquestioning, loose, rather lax
after the exchange of currency.
Viewed more or less
as a roadside weed.
Do not cut her down.
She is night-fragrant and
night-blooming.