Equinox

Here’s Wendy Morton’s delightful, 2010, September Equinox poem. 

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EQUINOX

Three old guys are standing in the rain
outside the post office on the West Coast Road.
I used to know their names.
They talk about the weather, friends who have died,
their latest complaints.
One of them holds a bouquet
of odd orange flowers and what seems
to be part of a palm tree.
Maybe it’s his wife’s birthday
that he didn’t forget this year.
Yesterday, I held my own bouquet:
September’s last rhubarb,
so heavy with stalks and leaves
that I leaned when I held them.
Behind me the borage, the Peruvian lilies, California poppies
still bloom as I tip toward memory,
toward this autumnal equinox.

6 Comments

  1. Ahh… September’s last rhubarb, indeed. Morton; the slyest of the detective-poets, artfully
    slips up behind the reader and whispers something that can’t be forgotten — because it keeps
    glinting from differing angles, throwing off sparks of meaning, tipping, as it were, toward memory & desire. That’s it: I surrender. Go ahead and arrest me..

  2. Wherever do you find the WONDERFUL poets you put on your website?? This one poem in particular is just exquisite — and the poet’s beautiful to boot!! Such a lovely garden by the look of it — can you get more pictures?

  3. Mmmmm…..Wendy, I’m coming over for rhubarb pie and tea in your gorgeous garden. Reading your poem I can be there ………..”tipping toward memory”. Thank you.

  4. Carol Anne passed on your link. thanks for sharing the late harvest in verse. I appreciate it being an island gardener and enjoying meeting those who share a connection to gardeners and their stories of the season!

  5. Wendy’s poem brings a tear to my eye. The feeling is both nostalgic and enduring at the same time. The fleeting precious moments of our lives… indeed, wonder and heartache walk hand in hand as I “tip toward memory”. Thank-you Wendy.. thank-you for making us stay awake…

    lisa shatzky,
    Bowen Island, B.C.

  6. This piece brings a tear to my eye.. a blend of what is nostalgic and what endures in the fleeting and wondrous moments of our lives. Thank-you wendy.. thank-you.. indeed, as I tip toward memory, what unexpected gifts I always find there…

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