I outline my mother’s flower garden

with fieldstones, though heat 

shimmers around me and cicadas rattle

in nearby trees, scolding I am too late

for this year’s blooms.  Undaunted,

I push another wheelbarrow load,

the weight welcome, rooting me

deeper into the sandy soil she nurtured.

Her departure before spring softened

the earth left promises and chores

suspended in air electric with her absence.  

My hands inside her gloves, their 

fingertips frayed from years of toil,

find stones shot through with mica and quartz.  

Sheeted in silver and white veined,

they catch sunlight only to break it, 

a thousand love letters cast to the sky.

---

PEGGY HAMMOND‘s poetry is featured or forthcoming in The Lyricist, Oberon Poetry, High Shelf Press, San Antonio Review, West Trade Review, Rogue Agent, and Ginosko Literary Journal. Her full-length stage play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, North Carolina.