Amid Death Valley’s Mars-red dirt, sand, heat, rust, a sight to make even pessimists swoon: flowers embrace once-barren ground. We see robust streaks of marigold, lemon, butter, saffron. Soon, Desert Star and Tobacco plants will have tossed their bridal white flower bouquets everywhere. Strewn nearby, pink Desert Fivespots flash petals flossed with blots of crimson. Pops of azure, maroon, violet all dot the nation’s dryest spot. One must look closely to see Gravel Ghost flowers – moon pale white – they perch on opal stems thin as dust. Painted Lady butterflies float to each festoon. These are doom times. We need garlands among dunes. Once blooms fade, they will scatter tiny seeds like runes.
*Beginning in February, 2026, Death Valley National Park in California has been experiencing its most abundant wildflower bloom in a decade as a result of almost 2.5 inches of rain from September to November, 2025. Some years, there is no rainfall. The last Death Valley Superblooms were in 2016 and 2005. New York Times, March 15, 2026, p. A14.
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Read more by Mary O'Melveny here on Lightwood. Go to our Search Button, insert her name and click.
Mary K O’Melveny, has authored four poetry collections and a chapbook, including If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird (Jerry Jazz Musician 2024); Flight Patterns (Kelsay 2023) (nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award); Merging Star Hypotheses (Finishing Line 2020), semi-finalist, The Washington Prize/The Word Works). Mary’s award-winning poems are widely published in print and on-line literary journals and poetry blog sites. Her fifth collection, What Remains? will be out this fall from Broadstone Books. She is a member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and co-authored the Group’s two published anthologies, Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.
Book linka: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/flight-patterns
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