This portrait is about a neighbor friend who lived down the street from me in Shadyside....I was a pall bearer for her as well as for her husband who predeceased her; written in 1992.

Another journey around old sol.
Betty, in her winter years, has driven
the route eighty times, while revering all life.
She tells me, "You'll go to Hell for killing slugs!"
She knows I especially like 'gooshing' the
contrail-on-the-pavement-land-squid on her sidewalk.
I laugh to contradict her, knowing, in my heart,
I do each slimy plant-eating molluscs a Buddhist-like
favor with a descending 14.

To digress:
Before the start of each year's journey
Betty's collection of last year's seeds propagate
anew in her tidy warm haven, to be planted out when
'her' weather permits.
All know then that her home-cathedral will be encircled
again by the congregation-leis
of her flower-pious children. Even the big guy 'up
there' should know he has a rival in her fruitful goodness
by the succession of her bounty.

In the spring Betty ushers her
plant-children to their lush furrows,
knowing that they'll be harmonious
in response by their greening hymns
with the fervor of their growth.

Then to summer, and Betty's annual lessons of weeding
and righting their order.
her garden-followers respond by offering back to her banquettes,
sense-bouqets, petition blooms
and the spice-prayers of their essences.

In the fall Betty prepares for the sad desert of winter by
reaping the good mortal harvest from the dry limbs of her
devotees; her old-lady-arms swaying to the beat of her
own root-gnarled hands as she strips them down to their
medium, to the soul of their being.

I still see Betty in my life now
waiting for the bus to Church with a colorful umbrella
flowering above her in the rain which seems to mourn
her not-yet-loss. And the profound old woman says,
"I may not be here next year...." But I know she
is mistaken...she's a perennial!