A year ago
winter at the gates
I had three potted mums
bloomed out, bent.
I dumped one
unceremoniously
upside-down in the barren garden
thinking to dig it under in the spring
but then a thought:
why throw them under the trowel?
Maybe they can bloom again!
So I kept the other two in their pots and tucked them in near the house
sheltered
and bade them a good winter’s night.
Spring came.
The sheltered two, lifeless.
The one that had spent the winter on its head
roots frosted by the wind
snowmounded
was sprouting!
What An die Freude was there!
I planted it
with humble apologies
in the front
where now it glows
a perfect radiant sphere.
And no one else knows
its triumph.
Connections