It hasn’t rained here for a while
so tonight I’ll turn on the garden hose and let it pour
out onto the parched grass and patch of dir
twhere I should have planted flowers last spring.

The year is fading into autumn now,
a prelude to the dry cold of winter,
and no more flowers will grow this year.
I’ve missed another season.

But I haven’t missed the chance
to fall to my knees and run my hands
through the cold and barren soil,

let the dust drip between my fingers
as something other than it is.

I think, as my knees sink deeper into the ground,
that I’m planting myself in here. Giving up
and going underground to wait.

All it takes, I know, is just a seed
to bring life from this lifeless earth.