I stood in my friend’s garden, much of it
destroyed by wind—trees on pond,
gazebo in pieces, fence down, roses with life
crushed out of them. I searched for ‘Peace,’
the rose that signified the fall of the Berlin Wall,
but it was gone with the fall of the levee.
There are huge bare patches, once home
to tall pines, scattered haphazardly
across the landscape; then suddenly, here and there,
imposing stands of purple cleome—giant violet
spikes sprung from seed blown in by high winds.
At the edge of the yard, gladiola appeared
from nowhere, gifts from the passing storm.
In front of my house, and up and down my street,
bright gold flowers suddenly sprouted.
Near the failed levee, where birdfeeders crashed
to the ground, mammoth sunflowers stretched
toward the sky. In my own back yard, a pink drama
unfurled from a shrub whose life began at the edge
of a hole where the giant red oak used to live.
Beautyberry and honeysuckle painted purple
and orange splashes on the flattened canvas
of lawn while the waning narcissus suddenly
leapt into folds of white sweetness. Outside
my window, the ‘Mermaid’ rose that once struggled
for sun against its crape myrtle host, now freed
of the greedy tree, bloomed in continuous cream
and gold clusters, feeding bees, who travel
from lily to lantana on the mission of a lifetime.
