Loraine Niedecker
The wind pulled up and spoke to me one day.
The jasmine on his breath took mine away.
'This perfume can be yours too, if you wants:
just let me carry off your roses' scent.'
'My roses? But I have none left', I said.
'The flowers in my garden are all dead.'
He sighed. 'Give me all the fallen petals, then.
The leaves that rattle in the empty fountain.'
With that, he left me. And I fell weeping
for the garden that they gave into my keeping.
Don Paterson
Asa Gray wrote Increase Lapham:
pay particular attention
to my pets, the grasses.