Flowers

By the river, where the trail is bent
and detritus has lodged after spring.
September is not a kind season, nor
are the falling temperatures a hothouse.
Though it always returns to time,
the way change tramples the known,
leaves doubt in its wake.  And rot prospers
because it can, because it conquers each
hope, each aspiration.  Construction —
a cat’s cradle moves from configuration
to configuration, not solid, nothing set
in stone.  Nothing snow blowing across
our words, freezing each word until it
drifts down, wordflake, nothing snow
can define and call its own.  Nothing
that cauterizes the moment when
we remember and lose our way.