Last Day of Summer

Farewell, sweet hollyhock, you served us well. Your beauty lingered long after the warmth was done. At your best, forty, fifty magnificent blossoms.

But now your dried seeds rattle in the wind. You will follow the sunflowers into winter’s dark. Poor sunflowers, all have departed, even the one that greeted us from his pot at the garage door …

devoured by a chipmunk whose bulging cheeks and sleight of eye tell  of a late summer harvest gathered and stored.