Letter to Those Who Follow Me

October

               And I took the roses down to stubs
Let them start again

Why keep the old growth
               I slipped my hand into the cool earth, inhaled hibernation
Caressed a woodlouse in quiet

We can take it down

               light a candle in a coffee can
tell our stories to root and corm

prune these misshapen pages
               these crooked days 
guide us deep with marigolds

somnolence
               cool    fallow    slumber
copal and salt