heirloom flowers

He wrote that summers

he hayed the fields with his grandfather,

walked the woods,

looked for blackberries to pick,

careful not to step in old root cellars,

watched for hollyhocks that foreshadowed

ruins of a farmhouse

where a long dead farmer’s wife

planted flowers by the door,

while her long dead husband

worked the fields behind a mule.

I wonder what foreshadowings

of hollyhocks lovingly planted by the door

of the long forgotten dead

I have been too busy to see.

11-19-25