“Night Bloomer”
from Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
Mrs. Brown’s
cereus plant bloomed on Saturday night.
She sent word
after promising I could come see it.
I rubbed my gritty eyes with swollen hands.
My stomach grizzled as I
made my way through the dark
to her house.
Ma wouldn’t have let me go at all.
My father just stood in the doorway and
watched me leave.
It was almost three in the morning when I got there.
A small crowd stood around.
Mrs. Brown said,
“The blossom opened at midnight,
big as a dinner plate.
It took only moments to unfold.”
How can such a flower
find a way to bloom in this drought,
in this wind.
It blossomed at night,
when the sun couldn’t scorch it,
when the wind was quiet,
when there might have been a sip of dew
to freshen it.
I couldn’t watch at dawn,
when the flower,
touched by the first finger of morning light,
wilted and died.
I couldn’t watch
as the tender petals burned up in the sun.
Hesse, Karen. Out of the Dust. Scholastic, Inc., 1997, pp. 81–82.
Read these lines from the passage.
“I couldn’t watch at dawn,
when the flower,
touched by the first finger of morning light,
wilted and died.”
What does the phrase touched by the first finger of morning light mean?
PART A: How does Billie Jo respond to seeing the cereus plant?
PART B: Which piece of text evidence supports the answer to PART A?
PART AA: Which statement best expresses the central idea of the passage?
PART BB: Which piece of text evidence supports the answer to PART A?