Sonnet #22

Digging up the weeds below the water spout I found

A single relic of a former gardener's memories

A piece of trash, to me, because the plant was drowned

A metal sign of chocolate mint that long ago dies

Everything will die, and when they do, the signs

We keep will be the Anthropocene bones

Metal, plastic, stone, and etched with names

Of planted, died, dissolved into the stones

A memory of chocolate mint, lettering stained

With memories of water - rust - twisted up, interred

The bent and ruined sign was barely legible

Poor gardeners call their signage cemetery markers

I prefer to think of them as Ozymandian heads

Once there was a garden here, a gardener, flower beds