It waxed with autumn, when the leaves—
Dogwood, oak and sycamore—
Avalanched the yard and slipped
Like unpaid bills beneath the door.

In winter it gave off a warmth
And held its ground against the snow,
The barrow of the buried year,
The swelling that spring stirred below.

In summer, we’d identify
The volunteers and green recruits,
A sapling apple or a pear
That stemmed from bruised and bitten fruits.

And everything we threw away
And we forgot, would by and by
Return to earth, or drop its seed
Take root and start to ramify.

We left the garden in the Fall—
You turned the heap up with a rake
And startled latent in its heart
The dark glissando of the snake.

From Olives (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press).
This poem first appeared in the National Poetry Review and on Verse Daily (2004).
Copyright © 2004 A. E. Stallings.
Used here with the author’s permission.