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.

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Published in The Blue Nib 2021

"The Daily Subtraction of Grief"

in Redheaded Stepchild