By now the backyard has fully forgotten 
the cardinals and wrens of summer. Mornings turn 
silent and nests begin to break and fall 
from poplar branches that once protected them. 
It takes times to adjust to colder months: 
the pain of frost grows deeper in the garden’s soil 
leaving stalks of cleome and zinnia stark and brittle 
as lovers whose midnight passions turned cold by dawn. 

But the camellia has learned to live 
with death, to green under cover of ice, 
to bend its tight-fisted bud into a northern wind 
and bloom. At my age I’m unsure what season my life is in, 
but I’ve seen the solstice’s final light around the petals 
and it is perfect. My wish is that it stays that way. 

Bio: Rick Mulkey