Deadheading

The feverfew is going over,

the hollyhocks are done,

the roses need deadheading.

After the luscious blare of June, 

we’re sliding into decay.

Something about late summer makes me feel melancholy,

and every year I think we’ve had the best of it,

but then every year I remember I’m wrong -

the roses come back for another flush,

the rudbeckias start to pop, 

the daisies come through again after their siblings’ heads were lopped off. 

Summertime sadness, I listen to the song on repeat,

Lana gets it. 

I mean, she probably wasn't singing about plants,

but that's ok.

I must remember this happens every time,

it doesn’t matter that the nigellas are done -

look at their gorgeous seed heads,

look at the poppies that have finished now,

brittle but tall against a blazing sky.

There’s beauty in these endings,

there’s a vision of next year in their seeds.

Time rolls on, as it does,

merit in every bit of it - even the melancholy -

I get sent a poem by the woman I love,

you know the one, the one about inviting in the crowd of sorrows;

it makes me cry but in the good way,

because it’s right isn’t it?

There’s space for all of it.

I deadhead my thoughts.