before the first good photo op appears
in my neighbor’s still-thriving flower garden

on another to-be-hot October day.
Because that’s what life does—

presents itself to us in all its flowering,
even amid sadness, loss, flooding,

but also in kindness wafting up
from tragedy’s muddy remains.

Here, half a block from my house,
a half dozen butterflies flit happily

among the still growing,
some of them soon to die, sure,

but others still in the full flush
of their vibrancy

as—if we are lucky—we will do,
too, all the way to the end.

•••

With thanks to Jen Cross and Louise Bierig for our writing time
together when this poem emerged.