Blooming, in our garden, 

decades ago, on the South Fork,

Montauk daisies massed for Autumn

 

Moving here, with that memory, 

we planted fulsome bushes, awaited

those first white Fall blossoms

 

Big and green bushes budded

and, as the plants flowered,

 lovely, gentle deer ate them

 

In another Autumn, decades ago,

Politics and daisies conjoined, an ad, 

a girl, a daisy, a mushroom cloud

 

An emotional appeal to vote, 

to avoid nuclear holocaust,

the end of life on this planet

 

Now other flowers, blown 

from our neighbor’s garden 

fenced against deer, rooted

 

These errant blooms animate

a new conversation, little girls, 

daisies, climate change…

​

J. Roger Guilfoyle is a Sierra Club member and resident of Connecticut for the last 27 years, with roots going back to Lake Waramaug in the 1950s. He is a design critic, writer, poet, editor, and educator.