October by Bobbi Katz is a fun poem to model and could lead to a wide variety of other new poems. My rough draft is pretty rough but I like the direction this is taking and I will come back to play with it some more. Since my garden is full of native plants, I do my planting in the fall, not the spring like so many other folks, and I like the idea of building on this poem.

October

October is
when the dirt bed
throws back its sheets
and welcomes bulbs and seeds
to have a slumber party
hoping they will move in
and improve the neighborhood.

October is when leaves are
starting to fall into compost piles
to feed the worms who will cook up
a nutritious meal for the native plants

October is
just before the rain begins to fall
in California
when the garden grows
underground
where you can’t see it
and hope for spring
surrounds you.

Susan Taylor Brown