Goldenrod
  
 Goldenrod takes the fields
 who wave their happy hands
 like parade queens.
 It’s all in the wrist, they say.
 A turn to the east
 and back to the west,
 a maized rhythm made certain
 by the metronome of wind.
  
 In late September, 
 I feel all my honeyed years 
 bend in the breeze--this way, 
 then that.
  
 For a moment, I slow--
 my ragged breath a sharp reminder
 of age.
 But in the next, I walk as a school girl,
 open and golden,
 the day, a gift to be unwrapped. 
 Present then past,
 this way, then that.
  
 It’s all in the wrist, 
 I say to the flaxen fields before me
 and wave my honeyed years 
 for all they’re worth.