THE GLEANERS
(after Roethke and Millet)
For thirty years I’ve watched them stoop,
Fred and Ann, waist-deep in green,
deadheading flowers
after their first blooming.
No wheat fields cleaned by hand this time
but the garden across Dexter Ave.
prepared at the cusp of summer
for its next extravagance.
They clip the plants below their seedpods
forcing a generosity of display that stops me,
for the pleasure and perfume of it,
all season long.