Here is a flower that is too large, too long and too low to the ground. I’ve never seen anything like it — words repeated over and over this year — though it may not be as rare as I think. I found it close to the hospital after Nurse's Clinic at the dialysis center and had to stop and look again. It’s almost as if it expects ants to help pollinate it. Of course there are many more higher up, but they have mostly passed their prime and are shriveling up and dropping everywhere, making an enormous mess. The mess, of course, might be part of how they propagate. I saw a prettier version of this flower on the cover of a book recently: Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. I haven't read the book, but I recognized the flower. It’s hard not to stop and consider such things. It's big and strangely interesting, but in truth I don’t find it beautiful the way I do most flowers, which are fewer and fewer this time of year. It has a certain alien quality. Something to catch the eye, but nothing one wants to ponder. I hope the book does better than the flower.