star shower

a poem

After cotton-soft fog, 
I am drunk 

on oak bokeh 
and the brittle leaf rattle 

of December. Here,
the quiet work 

of a winter aster,
its bone-white petals 

worn like a crown 
until wispy seeds 

fall away
in a tiny star shower.

A photograph I took of the New England asters in our winter garden, December, 2023.