My Banner Year

We stormed out

today to face

the gardened

spring.  First

to clear the

sorry dead  

we adventured

with last year—

both Lowes and

odd name tags

still hanging sad

and limp from

the blackened

branches of the

plants mowed

down by winter’s

machine pistols—

spattered ice and snow.

It makes no never

mind, as they say

in my part of

Pennsylvania—

an expression

I have come some

40 years to accept.

This year my

garden will be

featured on the

cover of “Home

and Gardening

Magazine,” with a

centerfold so lush

it will paint me

red to recognize I

planted it by hand.