The small San Diego garden plot lies waiting. Remains stripped bare from summer past. Green straggling leggy vines meander over and under blunt-cut branches of a now anonymous plant. Dried tall corn stalks stand in leaning stance, blown by winds or simply bent from lack of care once the cobs were picked.

Long woody stems are capped by dry flower tops, their name a mystery to me. Brown scaled outer shell still holds tight to popped open pods. Each pod is perhaps six inches across and contains what looks like spiderweb short wisps of silken threads. I am smitten by these long-past-their-prime blooms and try to capture their beauty in photos – some in monotone black and white, others in their natural earth like tones. I am sad to know these plants, beautiful in their drying state, will soon be cleared as new seed is sown.

migratory bird
transports dried seed in plumage
beauty travels far

Photos taken Saturday, on a walk through the beautiful campus of San Diego State University. We came upon a small garden plot by the art buildings. It was obviously left untended until spring, when it will be cleared and replanted.

Written for Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today Frank asks us to write about the coming spring. Haibun: two or three tight paragraphs of prose (must be true) followed by a haiku that invokes a season.