The crazy Rose of Sharon finally died.
It kept leaning to the East and got too tall to trim,
the last spray of flowers, purple and white mixed, were way at the top.
I think you would have told me it was a nuisance shrub
and to get rid of it, or at least make it behave.  

I noticed recently that it was truly bare- 
We started to cut it down a few times before,
but it was so brave to just keep growing and blooming
in its crooked, exuberant way-that we left it alone.  

We didn’t know this past Spring would be its last,
it leafed out as usual but is now kaput, as Pops would say.
It has dozens of offspring, even a few across the road-
we have potted them up and given them away,
but they just keep coming. I guess it isn’t really gone.