Poem: Lovely Dead

Lovely Dead

If I were to let you go
who would I show this garden to;
who would be there to tell me ‘no’
it’s not enough to say it’s blue

in June, when echiums greet the bees
(just as later they give finches seeds)
and turns yellow in summer sun,
burns to red with heleniums

in autumn. I leave their raw
shaggy stems all through winter now —
food and shelter for birds and mice,
hope and remembering too — but more
for the texture they bring to cold light;
though to say it’s not enough, I know.