Sage
(for Sandy DiSimone, in memoriam, and Pete DeSimone)
In the Spring of our canyon years
we discovered how each field grows
watching as if they were windows
opening on green brushed frontiers
Summer ripened them to disclose
long ewers of buckwheat and sage
pouring a golden heritage
for us through the open windows
Sudden Fall shuttered those windows
shattering the empty seed heads
with the birds flown from the sere beds
where parched flags chattered in windrows
Yet, on Winter’s path through dry fields
one knows that the rains will return
and the gifts of that sage live on
our hands hallowed in her rich yields
