REVENANT
by Jim Bishop
first breath of evening another season at the full sitting here
at the edge of the garden as the light changes as the season turns
you feel more than hear the forms of life in conversation grasses
trees even underground an indeterminate chorale toward what end
but stored intentions coded prompts from god knows where
in the fading beebalm a hummingbird is making do marigolds
nasturtiums zinnias holding their pedestrian glory even through
the pinch of early frost in the lengthening shadow cast by a bordering
pine they seem now to relax their grip exhale when as if this modest
plot dug from hard-pack clay were become in the waning light a portal
to some ancient ground where mingle the living and the dead she
appears my mother out of nowhere drawn perhaps by the astringent
smell of marigolds the flowers of the dead or my passing thought of her
tending her scruffy flower bed abutting the foundation of the old frame
house before they tore it down
mama now at peace so she seems granted reentrance to this remembered
green sanctum in a life of making do and me here in my worldly wicker
chair permitted witness while around us chipping sparrows flit and peck
at the season’s late bequest before their own migrations it is to be reminded
we are still in play a patch of compost in the wake of stars