Standing with the Narcissi/Beth Kephart Poem

I have denied the dahlias their second season,leaving their fretwork earthed in for the winter,their prospects overcome by white ice.



Beneath the lilacs, in the tulip bed, the gnawing hunger of the mole,and in the crush of azalea nearest the house,proof of the deer that came in the season of my insomnia and flared the windowWith its stoked breath.  This leaves



the burden of forgiveness on the red ranunculusand also the heather, dug in yesterday,as also the yellow broom that sweeps the teethof the iris you sent to me in a box from California,marked Yours. The burden of living forward stands with the narcissi.  The burden of truthwith the bleeding heart besidethe shaft of wintered grasses.