Kate LaDew: December 2021 Poet of the Month
do you remember when we would go to the arboretum
we read every sign naming every plant,
even the ones that weren’t there
we always picked the wrong time
when things were dying or dead
or when there was a space of dirt,
everything waiting under the ground,
never any other times but those
I think it’s because when it was cold
and nothing lived
we needed to see that they would, soon,
sounding out each syllable and stepping back,
looking at the black and white drawing
of what was not there yet,
imagining them in our heads
the colors bloomed like wishes
Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art. She resides in Graham, NC with her cats, Charlie Chaplin and Janis Joplin.
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