Horror vacui

Did I read it somewhere, or did someone tell me
the smell of rosemary is the smell of funerals? That
isn't the reason I asked our handyman to pull up
the dry stand of rosemary in front of the house. 
It had become choked with other growth,
impossible to separate— a pine sapling, coiled 
strands of ivy, plants he referred to as "volunteers."
No one put them deliberately into the soil— 
they arrived by way of seeds tucked in the feathers
of crows, in the breath of wind,  the paws of nocturnal 
animals. Their roots, tangled together underground.
In the same way, we arrived with one or two pieces 
of luggage and now, decades later, have no more
space to stash another pot, another armchair. In less 
than an hour, the flower bed was clear. The clean, 
austere smell of rosemary lingered on our hands 
and wrists— not exactly a memory, not exactly sorrow 
or even regret. Just the reminder that any emptiness, 
according to a law of physics, is momentary,