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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Just a Few Butterflies” Down in the Dirt, v193 (the 3/22 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Ice that Was the Down in the Dirt Jan.-April 2022 issues collection book		get the 420 page Jan.-April 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Trumpet Creeper

John L. Stanizzi

Fifty some odd years ago
my mother took a sprig
of trumpet creeper
from the old vine
in my great grandmother’s backyard.

Now, years and years later,
she brings a piece to us,
swaddled in wet newspaper,
and tells us it will grow and climb
and produce beautiful horn-shaped flowers.

But it hasn’t. And we’ve had it ten years.

The leaves are green and lush,
but there are no flowers and it doesn’t climb;
it crawls along the ground
away from the trellis,
and out to where the sun rises and sets
on the wild countryside.

Maybe next year, my mother says.
Maybe next year it will scale the trellis,
bring out its trumpets,
and as if it had been doing it forever,
fill the air with silent orange music.

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