Dear Mrs. Lester,

You will be happy to know, I think,
in these months of greening that we
mortals think of as spring, that your dear
daughter—the child you produced primarily,
or so I imagined, to become my best friend,
the girl next door—sent me home with five
of your houseplants that she has been
tending since you passed into mystery.

That daughter has had, as you surely see
from your vantage point, much to do
in the wake of your departure, and besides,
she has a kitty who likes to eat houseplants,
and, as you also know, having raised
a veterinarian and worked for some, too,
much of the greenery we love is not good
for kitties.

So I—the girl next-door, one of your troop
of Girl Scouts, a kid who found refuge at your house,
to whom you fed tuna and noodles, the greatest
food discovery of my young life—volunteered
to provide a home for these orphans.

You were, after all, the person who taught
your daughter, who then taught me, to identify
the first sprigs of wild radish on the hills
by the lake that bordered our neighborhood
and our lives.

From you, we learned about yellow poofs
of wild mustard, the tall, stately purple lupine
and, best of all, the brodiaea more commonly
known as blue dicks rising high on their
slender wands, topped with clusters of tiny
lavender flowers—often the first to bloom,
the first to disappear.

Every spring when I see these familiar friends
beaming in unexpected places—near poppies
and vetch and so many other growing things
whose names I have yet to learn—I think of you.

As I will when I find the just-right places
around my house for your plants.
I promise—Girl Scout’s honor—to faithfully
water them and look up their names,
though I will always consider them yours.

With gratitude and love,

Jan