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Flowering Sedges

There are plants all around my house. At the front door, behind the fence in the backyard, in front of the fence. I don’t know any of the names.

I’ve always wanted to be that type of person who can distinguish between which plant is poisonous, which plant is useful and edible, which plant attracts this bug and which plant attracts that one. But that is not me.

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I can’t even distinguish between an oak tree and a pine tree.

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I really can’t.

There are these grass-like plants planted in front of the old fence. They bloom and change color every season. Sometimes they’re yellow and orange in the center, like a blooming sun. They attract the eye amongst the greenish, long, thin leaves. Sometimes the flowers are purple, the purest royal purple, with a lavender color in the middle.

I wish I knew the name of this plant.

But I don’t.

I just call them flowering sedges.

You know what sedges are, right?

Now that I’ve described the plant, experts and plant lovers will tell me that the name is so easy and the plant so recognizable that even the “most ordinary” person would be able to name the plant. The name will probably be as simple as lily. Or tulip.

Or dandelion.

It probably is, but that doesn’t matter much to me now.

These plants change color every season. Yellow and orange during the spring and summer, then purple and lavender during autumn.

In some crazy way, they remind me of myself.

Sometimes I can be sunny and cheerful, like the orange-yellow flower that resembles the sun. Other times I can be frustrated and angry, like the dark purple flower.

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I wish that I could be in the middle. Calm and secure.

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Calm and secure.

Claire Jiang
Claire Jiang, 12
Princeton, NJ