Mountain Flower Homily
by Maggie Russell
The road was unrecognizable after the blizzards. Baby pines proliferated, opportunistically grabbed at muck giddy with water, immune to forgotten future fires. Higher up, orange hazard cones blocked progress, a still not melted snowpack of instability. We planted our green camp chairs there by the river where yellow flowers braided across the pancaked dirt complete with fingers of leftover floodwater. Those little flowers turned their petal faces down to the ground in astonishment, celebrating the once in a while chance to grow. The creek sounded louder the stiller I sat, but the flowers said the best prayer I’d heard all year.
‘Mountain Flower Homily’ was highly commended in our 2025 Spring Short Competition.
Maggie Russell is a tutor, essayist, and poet who writes professionally about law. In her creative nonfiction, she explores chronic illness and faith. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have been most recently published in the January House, the anthology Write Where You Belong, and Last Leaves. As a legal editor, Maggie reports on regulatory developments for professionals. She volunteers with programs that teach poetry in prisons. Raised by the woods in Connecticut, Maggie now lives in Nashville with her husband and pets.