Gathering

Out here, you can go to a farm and pick
armfuls of lavender that you cut yourself 
from plots threaded through with bee-flight. 
You can walk between rows of sunflowers, 
many of them taller than you, and angle 
your head as they do toward the sun's grand, 
unfollowable trajectory. Poets write of 
fleeting gold and leaves that yellow, 
of travelers that want to be in more than one 
place at once. But even when you haven't yet 
left, the scent of impending departure 
can wash over you like early morning 
fog. In that momentary stasis, it's as if 
time itself has pearled— a string of drops 
you can carry like a prayer in your hand.