Late garden
golden day
velvet-winged
tour jeté
airy footed
graced ballet
August-gilded
matinée.
Late garden
golden day
velvet-winged
tour jeté
airy footed
graced ballet
August-gilded
matinée.
My family’s in the garden
the past grows ever green
my mom is in the phlox
most surely, though unseen
her dad in the tomatoes
my green-thumbed Grandpa Mauck
son of North Carolina
whose hills rolled in his talk
Grandma O’Hern in moss roses
her summer’s tried-and-true
her son, my dad, in marigold
(the only flower he knew!)
the dill for an unknown
its air a bit of mystery
but I know it figures somewhere
in my leafy family history
I don’t come (as they say) from money
I come more from dirt
so it’s good to feel them back
in horticultural concert.
A frilly dot of marigold
a snip of lemon thyme
a dainty plume of tarragon
phlox snow at fragrant prime
radiant brown-eyed Susans
Rudbeckia at the crown:
smallness revels in itself
sans the world’s renown.
Marigolds at twilight
border of hot coals
fevered daytime’s embers
garden’s molten shoals.
when the summer is through
and the garden is all kerfuffle?
Seek golden red
stand on your head
and burrow in marigold ruffle.
the air was thick as mush
but I had to grab my camera
and get out there in a rush.
This visitor, this summer sprite,
this unabashed flirt,
demanded my
attentive eye
and mud upon my skirt.
But would he alight, becalm his wings?
Sit still for just a
mo?
No!
He just kept whirring
blurring
flitting to and fro.
I chased that Casanova
’round marigold and bee
and wondered if my neighbors
had a butterfly net for me.
covered with rue
boiled in cliche stew
I was blank and bleak.
So I played with objets
autobiographical
optimistically tactical
to find my writer’s way.
burnished epaulet
on garden sleeve
September’s pied salute
to
autumn’s brilliant breve.