Remembrance

Some say there's rosemary, that's for remembrance,
But I say please fill my arms with Russian sage
Growing wide and unwieldy along the gutters of
Second Avenue, planted by earnest and well-intentioned
Xeriscapers wanting to save the world,
But who did not, perhaps, fully understand
The true nature of this aggressive
And sharp-scented beast.

Saturday she pushed her own stroller
All the way home from 7-11,
My two year-old granddaughter, Buster Boots,
Who cannot be contained by a mere strap in a seat.
She meandered beneath an arch of blue stalks
On the street corner that left tiny blossoms,
thick as honey bees, in her unwieldy hair
So when I turned her over to her father that night
She smelled of Slurpee and sun on skin
And sweet, sweet wild sage.

Understory

"Understory: A layer of vegetation beneath the main canopy of forest."

I learned about understory in Alaska

As my friends and I waded through the 

Green grasses beneath the alder trees on

A tiny island in a river as silver as Coho

Salmon while dragonflies flitted 

 Past us in a sheen of blue.

I marveled at the thought of each quiet

Thing--seed and leaf and moss and shrub--

Whispering their stories there 

Beneath the noise of our unhearing feet.

Moment

I once asked a friend which
Emotions he feels most strongly.
Love and fear, he said. And you?
Love and loss, I said. Love and loss.
This morning in a melancholy mood
I felt the urge to count those losses
Just as the moon, solemn and silent,
Counts her stars like coins each night.
I began listing the things I miss--
Oh, the sound of certain voices
And the feel of those voices
All around me.
But then I saw a daylily,
Its dawn-pink petals, curved and fluted,
Arching above a spray of green leaf,
And it must be said in the moment
I was distracted by delight.