SEPTEMBER/REMEMBERING 911

                    September combines life and death

                    The garden is full of young smiling sunflowers

                     new baby zinnias

                    green tomatoes

                    ripe with promise

                    But the mulberry tree is gnarled

                    like an old woman's bones

                    and the leaves and sticks from Hurricane Irene

                    are strewn on the grass

                    that is dying

                    as are the sunflowers

                    whose necks are now

                    broken, faces black

                    with uneaten seed

                    I float in the pool

                    look up at an innocent sky

                    ten years

                    after

                    911