The Garden Love Forgot to Leave

On a night where I consider falling stars,
I hear the whirr of crickets and tree frogs
knowing it won't be long until the frost
cuts through the fields like a scythe,
grazing the grasses too short,
our barefoot days of summer
only stains and calluses
to be scrubbed clean.

My nostrils tell me
the farmer has been haying
one last time;
the waves of flowers
and wild fodder
sweet with the sun
even after it sets.

I have no need for bales
to remember how good
this withered vegetation will be
in January.  The walls of a barn
warm with animals who chew
on the cud of all that is lost.

On this night when the day turned under
and exposed itself,
blushing pink,
and then opened up
into the seeds of all light,

I ache to brush back the curtain
of all joy and look out the window
into the garden where love
forgot to leave.