Four Way Gift

An amaryllis has always been a wonder to me,
four blooms pointing to the directions of the compass,
or the elementals, one. In my high-desert youth it was
a quest to get a bulb to reproduce at all --
buriying the bulb to freeze but one night.
Keeping it the dark for fortnight --
mystical spells and incantations,
sigh!

Here in Tennesssee I just ignored it,
leaving the pot on a windowsill
that gets cold in winter ...

and.