Late June and here I am, contemplating cycles
on a different deck, a different yard, with a different
outlook.  

Timehop and Lexington Poetry Month caress hands (again),
writing love letters of reminder:  No matter how much changes, much
stays the same.  It is only these eyes (and this heart)
revealing disparity. 

Purchasing seeds is something of a risk:  You know
what could happen.  You pay the price for hope. 

What makes one grow while others do not?
Goldilocks breaks the silence. 

Too much sun.  Too little.
Too much water.  Not enough. 
Fancy food.  Simply space.

The plants I bought (my mother placed in pots) sit around me,
some vibrant (even giddy), stretching and yawning–coming awake.
Others despondent (already wilting), husks of former nature.

Dying. 

I play cup games with placement.  Shuffle them like cards
across this elevated surface.  Attend to apparent needs,
casting dice and prognosticating the potentiality
of futures.  That is what you can do.  And be content.

Because sometimes things fall apart.  Entropy, eventually, has his say.
I wonder if it is my fault (again).  I wonder if some of us are not
meant to see things grow (in our own yards), only appreciate the ones that do,
mourn the ones that do not.  And learn to keep our fingers
out of the soil, away from hungry ghosts. 

Late June and here I am, contemplating cycles,
feeling the heat of the day rekindling.  Knowing

much more will come and stay
the same, but I have grown

and need a new pot.