Winter Rye

by Richard Fenwick
(Tucson, Arizona)

On an evening of poetry,
my mind drifts back to May,
when the pale green Bermuda
replaced the Winter Rye.
We quietly closed the niche
on her life, a midnight whisper
across a wide expanse of bed.
Gathering later, my father
attended to every guest,
reverential, pouring wine,
smiling at nervous jokes,
consoling us, the way
a Billy Collins poem can,
when the rains came.
Now spring is gone, summer
has leaked in, and the Bermuda
is full and faint. Still, I think
of him in May, graceful
with the wine, stylish in a coat
and tie, peaceful as he stood
so still, in the last small patch
of dark green Winter Rye.