And the next day,
the flowers are dead.
It always happens this way—
the zinnias go from orange
and gold and pink to fragile gray.
And the cosmos are slender
skeletons of bloom
that blazed only yesterday.
The nasturtiums resemble
drooping weeds from the sea.
The marigold leaves have blackened.
It always happens this way.
And the world goes on.
And the world goes on
with its cyclical necessities.
I pull roots from the ground
and breathe the rich and sour scent
of summer spent and autumn
chill triumphant, and fall
in love with the empty rows,
this is the way, the way it goes.
And it’s beautiful, this absence.