In The Neighborhood Flower Garden Poem by Bill Zavatsky

Shadow of a bee zig-zagging through the grass,
then the apparition of the bee itself, whirling around me
the way, a moment ago, uncapping my pen to write,
three crazed sparrows flew above my head, chirping,
wings awhir, in and out of the iron fence points.
Everything's waking up, 10:17 a.m. The street sweeper
whirls its brushes along the curb, tossing out
more leaves and trash than it sucks in.
What's that big black hearse doing in the middle
of 90th Street, parked like the black shadow
of something terrible hovering in the air, something
we are not permitted to see, though we know it is death
with its big black arms like doors thrown open
to receive us in cool October sunlight, beneath the bluest sky.
A lady pushing a baby carriage stares through the fence bars.
'Flowers,' she says in a deep voice, as if
she were half asleep. But I want the shadows.
Shadows and sunlight . Last warm autumn sun
with its hand upon my neck as I write,
stroking me almost, almost saying, 'Good boy, Bill,
good boy,' because that's what the sun whispers
all summer until the cold comes to make us
feel as if we were bad, bad, and punishes with wind.
But now the wind is gone, though I can see the grass
shake in a little breeze, and on my face and ears
I too can feel the air. The tree which stands up
so straight and tall in front of me is a good boy, too,
for waving in the breeze, for stretching toward the blue sky
balancing so neatly at the edge of the apartment house
outlining the other, bigger trees, managing
to hold the sunlight in its skinny arms
a few last moments, like a boy holding a girl
at the beach, when the sun is almost gone,
falling asleep far away in the sea, the way
summer's memory's nearly left me.