I don’t remember the name of the first
        Hail Mary, perhaps, or Scottish Fantasy
        Lavender Illusion or Gregorian Chant
I know that Blueberry Muffin and Giggle Creek
        didn’t come until later
        until after

After those first few bedraggled scapes
        were tenderly pushed into holes
        freshly dug in the red clay
pioneers lovingly chosen
        from among Don Church’s many children
        hidden behind tall juniper hedges

After the once alder-choked bank
        sloping gently above the Bar Harbor stones
        had been painstakingly cleared
trunks and branches and roots and rocks
        all pulled out to make of wild scrub a garden
        and of this acreage a home

They are the ones who made it ours
        Big Dolly and Lady Liz
        Grape Ice and Velvet Thunder
flaunting vibrant July colors
        on improbably thick petals
        filling the landscape, and us, with joy

Now there are thirty
        bearing seventeen different names
        some of them divided several times over
delightfully delicate daylilies
        their dazzling presence declaring
        they belong here and so do we