This is a good year for ornamental cabbage, its creamy centers unblemished by frost spots or drought. I noticed a stand of these plants on my walk yesterday. Light pink shading to ivory, edged by sage green.

I stared hard at them as I passed, lost myself momentarily in their spiky beauty so that I could re-create them on the page this morning. A type of stillness in their leafy flower. “A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye,” in Wordsworth’s style.

Later I would stroll past the Capitol and the Supreme Court, philosophies etched in stone, all the grandeur of official Washington.

But what stayed in mind were the cabbage plants, their quiet beauty, their brave salute to winter.