So much goes on in the country of my backyard
that I need a throne to oversee it all. Of course the dogs
spill out through the back door
into their favorite room. They squat and sniff,
chase toads, watch the neighbor’s border collie
spring up to try to see them over the fence.
Birds inhabit the air and the trees, call dibs
on the feeder, flee when the mourning doves
or the starlings come bumbling in like those old
chubby planes barely making the runway.
Hummingbirds ignore us all, distant as ballerinas.
The lilies I inherited from the previous owner
swell, about to open gaudy orange umbrellas
that will split and bend backwards like curious
octopi. Coreopsis presents buttons of green buds
in preparation for a festival of yellow. I should be
planting new flowers for the dogs to trample
but I have no energy for extra heartbreak, this month
last year the month of my sister’s diagnosis
and her gone before winter solstice. But I shouldn’t
forget the compost pile, all the vegetable detritus
and tea bags and egg cartons mixing into a rank
stew, the miracle of carbon breaking down
so in a few months I can remove the lower panel
and shovel out something better, richer,
the result of neglect and transformation in the dark.
Oh, believe me, I know,
the shadows of leaves sway and flutter
over the grass, a hundred hands waving,
and every time I breathe, I am waving back.
