The Whole Flowering
Yes, the full bloom is pretty
all that culmination just short of perfection,
that opening,
a hasp and harbor for light and warmth
a wide-eyed blossoming
raised up in a blind glory
of transient dominion.
Yet the withering is more lovely to me,
less beautiful,
more graceful than appearance.
The grace arrives just beyond the apogee
as when a high wave reaches its crest
then grace rides ahead of that decline
ahead of any loss or sorrow
it looks not to what was
nor does it seek a tomorrow.
That soft hollowing into the brittle arms
of bodiless ghosts
is a prayer for the ages
but not cut flowers in a vase, no
they die in a fetid wallow
and it is our love of beauty,
our grasping at that splendor
that curses their death.
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