Today in morning woods I caught
the garlic’s first faint scent adrift
along the air. The new green lifts
through last year’s brown: a promise, wrought
in emerald. I see ahead
through brief, wide weeks of growth to where
the bride-bright flowers ride the air
above the pungent leaves, and spread
to fill the eye—and straight away,
along with joy, a sorrow pulls
that life requires us to be fools
who choose the poison-cup. Decay
comes swift upon the green; and yet
we drink, and willingly forget.