Lavender Boughs

yesterday I culled my lavender plants.

two of them.

they had grown without tending

 for several years

 but didn’t make the winter.

dried woody boughs

 still fragrant with scent…

brittle edges,

 sharp against the skin

 when reaching deep

 to sever at the crown

I took care to remove the branches

 without receiving wounds

and now they are cut,

 stacked up in great piles

like memories

 bundled into sheaves

 for crude dismissal

but memories such as these

 should be consumed

 in evening hours

 in the ways that send

 the scent of lavender

 to the heavens

carried on the smoke

 of its own creation.

such is how

 memories burn