As one sunflower reaches beyond the rooftop

and another suddenly aims straight northward,

enormous striped grasshoppers,

along with their small neon green brethren,

bounce every which way,

skitter piles of dry elm seedpods and creep,

sticky-like, slow, elegant and silent,

up the window frame.

They’ve been kind enough to punch countless holes

in the hollyhock leaves–

seems the Sun asked for more contact with the ground.

Kind of them to oblige…