Her Garden

              I let her garden go.
                           let it go, let it go
       How can I watch the hummingbird
                   Hover to sip
                   With its beak's tip
The purple bee balm—whirring as we heard
                   It years ago?
              The weeds rise rank and thick
                           let it go, let it go
       Where annuals grew and burdock grows.
                   Where standing she
                   At once could see
The peony, the lily, and the rose
                   Rise over brick
              She'd laid in patterns. Moss
                           let it go, let it go
       Turns the bricks green, softening them
                   By the gray rocks
                   Where hollyhocks
That lofted while she lived, stem by tall stem,
                   Dwindle in loss.

--Donald Hall