(Si monumentum requiris, circumspice)

You’ll need no plaque or marble now. You saw
your corner of all future autumns claimed
in Eaglehawk that afternoon your name
was written down a dahlia stake. In time
that still has far to come the people drawn
down aisles of numbered dahlias may find
their eyes arrested where the lights that lie
in petal edgings blur
and merge with burgundy. They’ll pause,
perhaps, and check their catalogues again.
And read your name.
And wonder who you were.