Changing Season

Flowers like moist new moths

curve back their sepals, blur

this hill. I watch the children

swarm below, and you

are bright and delicate

as flowers. When we walk home,

our feet crush petals purple

as communion wine.

I would take your hand,

but you run through the foxtails,

beating out a new path.

I remember when your weight

was warm against my breast,

your infant fingers weaving,

supple as new leaves.

I long to press the petal

of your cheek, to touch

the warm silk of your hair.

But your lengthening body weaves

dimly beyond the field.

Today dark petals lodge

in rocky crevices

like outgrown clothes, while stalk

and pod curl underfoot.

As clouds of earth and seed

rise up and scour this hill,

I lean into cold rock

and watch a new wind press

your skirt against your hose.

Copyright © 1986 Marian Jane Dickinson