When at the end
of the dog days of the Lion
and the garden is again
conducive to prayer,
arrange the knees
bent in homage to the winter.

It is time to pray
the garden into being;
the stage for the winter solstice.
It is time to oil the tools
to store in barns designed to hide
the hot and humid days
that made breathing difficult.

Spent flowers, weeping willows,
short term annuals,
having already died
their unceremonious death.
We pickup, clean up
the dried up dregs of the summer days,
and live to breathe again
the freshness of a cooling breeze.

Refreshed.