Read Poem: PERENNIALS, by Linda Bowers

Each year with the passing of the last sprigs of bougainvillea
when Texas rangers weight down into desert soil
my calendar conspires with the universe to spawn another year
another birthday, another anniversary empty of you

And,
not really empty, just the significant sorrow of loss
You would be eighty years Saturday
my arms would engulf you
covering your wounded
body

But,
the psychic prognosticated we were here
years before in Atlantis as lovers
we lost each other and sunk
losing the sun and moon
light

And,,
we regained myriad parts in this lifetime
singing the mermaids song
holding steadfast to each
other whispering secrets
cryptic

But,
It was lost in a smelly shed
reading Barbara Kingsolver’s novel
sipping a beer laced with opiates I had stashed
for my eventual demise..you made it over, and over and over

And it was finished like the last bloom of a
Queen of the Night caught and trapped in lasting
rays of spectrum stymied life … to seed my soul
watchful of the future’s reemerging perennials