The moment among the oaks
Now cosmos in bloom and snow-in-summer
opening along the garden’s stone borders,
a moment toward a little good fortune,
water from the watering can,
to blossom, so natural, it seems, and still
the oldest blooms outside my door are flourishing
according to their seedtime.
They have lived as in trust
of tended ground, not of many seasons
as the lingering bud in late summer,
when leaves have reached their greenest,
when a chill enters the nights,
when a star I’ve turned to, night after night,
vanished in the shift of constellations.
But when on a bare branch,
even in August, a sprig starts,
sprig to stem -- as if to say, See,
there’s kinship with the perennials
you think so hardy -- voice
the moment among the oaks, toast
the spring in summer, as once each May
a shot of vodka is poured on bare dirt
among gravestones to quench the dead,
among the first stars of this new evening.
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