Note to the Hyacinth Lady

The last snow has been
stolen from sere woods
across Lackner Boulevard
where I find trilliums and jack-in-the-pulpits
impatient (and moss slowly eating horizontal
trees limbs). Hyacinths are old
news. Geese protect goslings. Lounge
chairs crowd the deck along with
the cleaned barbecue. Grackles
have returned to reclaim the back
yard cedars. The snow shovel
hangs in the garage. The snow blower is stored
off to the side and last fall’s unfinished
refinishing projects have room
to sprawl where a car has so seldom been parked.
I am one year closer to the hope I can
retire. The kitchen needs a phoenix’s touch
as does the outside of the house. It’s eight
o’clock and the sun has yet to set. What time
is it now in Afghanistan? Today in the Sunday
Sun there was an article about our lost
compatriots. For each death was a picture
of them young on a black and white beach
riding a tricycle or posing for hockey
team photos. My mother will be eighty-eight
this year. I grew up with her stories
of the war in Slovakia. She never forgot
the price of exaggerated dreams nor how
people can be defined not by who or what
they are but by agenda and the need to consume
everything the eye can see. She says
this is history again and again and again. I will
retire this year. The days are warming
and lengthening. The gales of
November will find me prepared.