A Pasture Poem by Richard Wilbur This upstart thistle Is young and touchy; it is All barb and bristle, Threatening to wield Its green, jagged armament Against the whole field. Butterflies will dare Nonetheless to lay their eggs In that angle where The leaf meets the stem, So that ants or browsing cows Cannot trouble them. Summer will grow old As will the thistle, letting A clenched bloom unfold To which the small hum Of bee wings and the flash of Goldfinch wings will come, Till its purple crown Blanches, and the breezes strew The whole field with down. "A Pasture Poem" by Richard Wilbur,  from Anterooms. © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.