Come Summer

All winter long
I played the role
of feckless youth;
left alone in dusty fields –
stomping on all in my path;

the air, drier
than teasel heads –
thistles stab up
like a cobra’s fangs
through the stubble...nothing
is spared, not even poppies
that stare with eyes,
black as coal.

Only weeds
I tell myself, knowing
she would have said,
‘A weed is merely a flower
growing in the wrong place.

And then she springs up
right in front of me;
an aura of ambergris
cuts through the rippling
sea of meadow vetch,
hiding her face,

but I know it is she,
her feet scarcely touching
the ground, her hand,
beckoning...

a mother to her child,
and I am stilled
by the wonder.
Come summer –
this is all there is...

as she turns to leave –
a pale, lone sunflower
leaning with her.