Three old guys are standing in the rain

outside the post office on the West Coast Road.

I used to know their names.

They talk about the weather, friends who have died,

their latest complaints.

One of them holds a bouquet

of odd orange flowers and what seems

to be part of a palm tree.

Maybe it’s his wife’s birthday

that he didn’t forget this year.

Yesterday, I held my own bouquet:

September’s last rhubarb,

so heavy with stalks and leaves

that I leaned when I held them.

Behind me the borage, the Peruvian lilies, California poppies

still bloom as I tip toward memory,

toward this autumnal equinox.

 

 

From Postcards from the Sky (Leaf Press, 2011).

Used with the author’s permission.