The Bluestone Review Spring 2022

Requiem for a Sedum By Mimi Merritt In another fall I would not have cried when workmen backed a truck over my sedum. It would have been time by then to cut back the spent stalks before the assault of frost and snowflakes. But in that October’s drought as black clouds teased but barely spit tears on sun-scorched earth grasses, the russet of the old-growth succulent had offered autumn color barely seen in nearby oaks. I remember hearing an unfamiliar sound as I harvested broken stems, a skittering like squirrel claws overhead in rotting eaves as a hot breeze scratched brittle brown leaves across the sidewalk, leaves that in other falls spiraled downward to blanket damp lawns in gold and crimson. We hadn’t mowed our grass since July that year, waiting for winter’s dark sleep to come and be done with it while the hollow-stalked sedum skeletons I gathered persisted in a dust-smothered flowerpot on our porch until one day, among purple crocuses popping through an early spring’s snow, the first green shoots of sedum appeared where tire tracks once had been. Old By Linda Hoagland Riding the Storm By Linda Hoagland The Storm of pestilence

Spring arrives with sunshine Don’t care Family doesn’t check mom She’s old Alone and dead for two weeks

called COVID Many friends all gone riding COVID Wait patiently for vaccine to survive Tomorrow is not known for all

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