Harvesting the Lavender

This poem arose as I harvested lavender one afternoon in the warm sun. Despite wrapping her in linens and blankets, a winter storm had killed my beloved plant a few weeks before. She was slowly dying, her leaves shriveling.

I resigned myself to her death and began gathering the dried leaves - I thought I'd mail them to a friend in Canada. But as I saw the envelope I'd grabbed from my desk, I smiled. A poem began to take shape, and I paused my harvesting to write her.

The ending surprised me, and I felt that tingle of awe that happens when I get out of the way and 'let the poem know more than you do,' as my friend Rosemerry has taught me to do.

I feel hope in my chest, and a lot lighter and freer as I mail in my taxes.

Harvesting the Lavender

When the lavender dies in the winter storm
you strip the dried leaves from their stems.
The pall of their aroma stains your fingers
as you open a drawer, looking for
an envelope. You think you'll mail them
to a friend. But you smile when you flip
over the envelope and see the address
written across the front: Montana
Department of Revenue. You imagine
sending scented leaves with your tax return,
picture the look on the face of the clerk
who opens the flap, reading your note:
here are my taxes, my portion
of the revenue I grew on Texas soil.

You like to imagine that the lavender leaves
can do as much for your former home as the
dollars and cents printed on your check. You see
a new mountain road in her future, fresh pavement
to a rural school, a bike path so children can ride
their bikes in the early morning light. There is
fresh concrete and growing alongside, lavender
plants waving their hands in the summer wind.

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With a grateful heart, Karly