Late summer latitudes in quiet heat.

Listless breezes brush floundering flowered
stems for deadheading – as fields of lost minds
are plucked and thrown, as useless, away,
once their lovely charms become
relics of distant blurred memories.
Too many to remember but the first ones
growing by a white picket fence, four in all,
flowers in a row, planted long ago –
spring flowers now bending their faces to the ground.

Late summer thoughts of fading flowers –
deadheading browned blooms by evening’s light.

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Portland, Oregon – August 22, 2017

We are aging, my three siblings and me. We were born and grew up by a short and low white picket fence. The idea of “deadheading” as applied to persons may be a troubling concept, yet it stands in recognition of our participation in the cycles of life shared with all of being.

Photo is my own, taken August 30, 2017.