Reseeding
The wading pool killed grass in a rectangle.
Rose bushes—New Dawn Climbing and England’s cold
Queen—mounted chain link fencing, minding
garden and path to the alleyway gate.
We cast the bluegrass seed on the path and lawn.
The spaded bare spots, cut off by chicken wire
from dog and child, let embryonic
turf in the crumbling and furrowed soil
embed. The dry seed poured in the toddler’s cupped
hands tickled, like a black chrysalis fluttering
on Easter breeze. Orange, nervous monarch
flew from the latch to the yard like new words.
Early Red
Hydrangea cuttings—pale magenta buds that dulled
to Robin’s egg blue—failed to root.
Stems rot in glass jars.
March is shaking milkweed hulls.
Brown fields, untilled, destitute,
ignore russet twigs that shoot from knotted orchard bark—
mild winter’s memory of the dark.
Matthew Hummer is a teacher, gardener, and writer in Pennsylvania. His website is https://scribenswriting.weebly.com/