Last night I continued reading a beautiful little book about a river I bought a week ago and got to the part on page 82 about the cardinal flower, which happens to be in bloom still in the dry bed of the brook on the corner of our property along the Charles. I walk past it every day. One year many years ago, in a summer with drought almost like this one, I transplanted a few of these beauties to a shady spot near our house where I grow ferns transplanted from the woods. The next summer they brightly bloomed in their new home. And the next summer they simply did not and I have seen no sign of them there since.

Where they want to belong is the slightly moist muck in the bed of the dry brook.

I am going to see if I can see a hummingbird visiting my cardinal flowers tonight at dusk.