When she said she wanted us to see
she meant seeing cowslips and musk roses
where there were weeds, English oaks

where there were dead elms and dying
chestnuts, greening hills where there
were mountains of tires and engine parts.

Walking the hospital halls looking for a friend,
she finds herself in every room, bleached
and withered and near death, wondering
if oversized books will groan for her one day

and tissue-paged anthologies issue their sighs,
if Shakespeare's plays will stand as her ribs
and heart and if, in her honor, novels will refuse

to open and volumes of poetry refuse to close,
revealing on each page her long walks home
and late nights spent in the company of words.