A Few Poems

Golden Purslane
The seed packet promises fifty days
of golden-hued leaves among the greens,
larger and more upright in its ways
than its wild cousin, gangly and fey,
which seeds itself, stretching grayish green.
The seed packet promises fifty days
crisp and brightly flavored, swallowtails
who pause, drift away, beetles who scurry unseen
beneath the large, upright, golden displays,
leaving spirograph designs in the loam, arrays
of hidden lives, promises of rolling in the clover, green
and lush, of salads, soups, whole picnics for days,
stir fries, stews, wine and cheese, fragrant bouquets.
Dragonflies will land, hover and sway, bright green
and larger still, upright, glinting in their way.
Fresh furrows mark a passage on the page.
To plant a seed is to know exactly what I mean:
to plant a promise, a golden packet of days,
to grow larger and more upright in your ways.
Published in The Blue Nib 2021
Three Poems:
"Upstream," "Please Forgive Me," "Barn Owl" in The Galway Review
"The Daily Subtraction of Grief"
in Redheaded Stepchild