Birds do it themselves,
winging from warm-weather locales
over winter to cooler summer spots.

So do toads, migrating from log piles
or burrows in the cold months
to travel en masse to the ponds

where they were born, tadpoling
into toadlets before blossoming
into their full toady selves.

But my plants, which somewhere
along their evolutionary path
lost their feet, dropped their wings,

need my hands. So at the last
possible moment, before big rains
whoosh in, I migrate some

from backyard deck to front porch,
other tender ones to inside the house.
Nobody’s happy, including me,

who feels a bit mooshed with all
this greenery that requires more
careful watering than the hose-on-deck

method. And I realize during this
biannual migration of outdoors to in,
indoors to out, that I inherited

a good number of these guys, that
they once belonged to other people’s
dead loved ones. My mother,

a forgetful plant owner, had
none to leave me, which was fine
since I brought far too much

of her stuff home. But
I smile as I move Benjamina,
the variegated ficus that belonged

to Dick’s mom who died in 1999,
and I’ve repotted a couple of times
(the plant, not Mom).

And I have Mrs. Lester’s peace lilies,
a couple of which also needed
repotting after the racoons

living under my deck decided
to sample and fortunately reject
them. Now I have Mrs. Morgan’s

anthuriums, which arrived looking
wan, no doubt missing her,
and I am happy to report that

they have perked up nicely
after summering on the deck.
Some sun, some water does

wonders for us all. “We’ll be
back out in it before we know it,”
I tell them, hoping that

they believe me.