In a year this bare patch of soil will be crabgrassed 
and creeper-vined, the first and the fastest to drop 
their roots into the rubbled earth where I kneel to plant 
a trio of hibiscus, a gift from a friend, 

who tells me they will flower before the summer ends, 
red and insoucient in the waning light of a year of 
waning light, get them into the ground, she said, 
they are annuals, they will be gone in six months, 

but they will leave behind a legacy to rest amid the 
encroaching crabgrass, seeds that fall without a plan 
and lay just beneath the surface, where they will wait 
for the sun of a different day to rise.