Jean Kiernan Detjen

Give me the milkweed pod
splitting before it's ready,
seed-silk let loose
into the wind.

Give me the New England aster,
purple past its own deadline,
stubborn in a ditch
nobody planted it in.

Give me the crack in the mudbank
at low water on Mud Creek,
the shape left behind
when the current changed its mind.

Give me the goldenrod,
gone to rust and gone to seed.
Not dying. Just finished
being one thing.

Give me the corn stubble,
combed flat and rowed straight,
and the one stalk
the picker missed,
leaning gold against the grey.

Give me the sandhill cranes,
circling the field twice
before they agree
which way is south this year.

Give me the hand
that pulled the wrong weed
and let the right one stand,
by accident.

The air smells like frost.

— Jean Kiernan Detjen