Let’s face it:  this garden’s showing its age.
Spring would never be caught dead
wearing withered stems, fallen leaves,
lichens & dried seed heads.
There is no visible horizon.
Only October—
refusing to dye her roots.
The blue balloon flowers have accepted
their inevitable droop & it’s evident no one told
the blooming pink hollyhock her days are numbered.
Look, the dahlias pretend they belong,
but they can’t hide the fade of their blush,
how they’d wish someone had captured
their best side, applied a filter,
picked them at their peak for a wedding bouquet.

Now note the fiery blooms of the blanket flowers.
What are the right words to describe them here?
I am 57. I will call them defiant. They know
the winter’s gray approach, face the frost unfazed,
They are alive & beautiful & never mistake
themselves for June—

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Victoria Nordlund is the Poet Laureate of Glastonbury, CT, and lead master teaching artist of The Nook Farm Writers Collaborative at The Mark Twain House & Museum. Her poetry collections Wine-Dark Sea and Binge Watching Winter on Mute are published by Main Street Rag. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize Nominee, whose work has appeared in Rust+Moth, Chestnut Review, Maudlin House, trampset, and elsewhere. Visit her at VictoriaNordlund.com