Chera Hammons
March, the Garden
This year, because we didn't have the usual winter cold,
our flowerbeds didn't die all the way back.
It's not like every other spring, when the butterfly bush
has to grow all the way back up from its roots.
The catmint and lamb's ear have already spread far past
what we intended, but we aren't merciless enough to trim them,
and though there has been little rain, the desert willows
leaf out. The bees dance their maps before there is nectar anywhere.
This brief kingdom does not accept much rule. March is still
the harshest month. We grow used to the wind and dust
of spring, the red flag warnings, the burn bans.
A few weeks ago, from our back window, we could see a plane,
glossy as an early hawk, weaving through the smoke,
dropping its discouragement on hungry flames
while we talked about whether we should evacuate.
No matter how much rain we get, it's never enough,
and this year is already hot enough to remind us of another
not long past, when flash fires overtook the cattle as they fled,
so that their charred bodies were left half-melted
standing like art, posed mid-run, cooked and reeking.
Ever since that year, I have had nightmares that those cattle were us.
The flies are never dormant; the wasps are out in February.
The Jupiter's Beard already looks the same way it did last July.
Sap rises in the ash like a lullaby toward the moon.
Still I am surprised by myself, how I hesitate.
Chera Hammons is a winner of the 2017 Southwest Book Award through PEN Texas and the 2020 Helen C. Smith Memorial Award through the Texas Institute of Letters. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Baltimore Review, Foundry, The Penn Review, Poetry, Rattle, The Sun, The Texas Observer, Tupelo Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Return to July 2023 Edition
This year, because we didn't have the usual winter cold,
our flowerbeds didn't die all the way back.
It's not like every other spring, when the butterfly bush
has to grow all the way back up from its roots.
The catmint and lamb's ear have already spread far past
what we intended, but we aren't merciless enough to trim them,
and though there has been little rain, the desert willows
leaf out. The bees dance their maps before there is nectar anywhere.
This brief kingdom does not accept much rule. March is still
the harshest month. We grow used to the wind and dust
of spring, the red flag warnings, the burn bans.
A few weeks ago, from our back window, we could see a plane,
glossy as an early hawk, weaving through the smoke,
dropping its discouragement on hungry flames
while we talked about whether we should evacuate.
No matter how much rain we get, it's never enough,
and this year is already hot enough to remind us of another
not long past, when flash fires overtook the cattle as they fled,
so that their charred bodies were left half-melted
standing like art, posed mid-run, cooked and reeking.
Ever since that year, I have had nightmares that those cattle were us.
The flies are never dormant; the wasps are out in February.
The Jupiter's Beard already looks the same way it did last July.
Sap rises in the ash like a lullaby toward the moon.
Still I am surprised by myself, how I hesitate.
Chera Hammons is a winner of the 2017 Southwest Book Award through PEN Texas and the 2020 Helen C. Smith Memorial Award through the Texas Institute of Letters. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Baltimore Review, Foundry, The Penn Review, Poetry, Rattle, The Sun, The Texas Observer, Tupelo Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Return to July 2023 Edition