Monday, February 23, 2009

Zinnia Valentine

1.

After we’d gotten past
the question of importance

I found something missing
in the garden

a brush of sparrow shadows
swept over me
first one way then the other

was it a cross or an X that locks
the target to the treasure
a zinnia seedling

had disappeared overnight
hadn’t you said our youth ends

only if we accept
impermanence

when only one of five seeds had sprouted
out of a bag of maybe thirty

out of so many
only a few can tolerate
the picture of death

that’s what you pay for
the grocery stores closed now
no I mean boarded up

as if plucked right out of the ground
so the blackness around it
barely moved

the breeze lifts
as if you would return

when if it depended on us
we could not go on at all

we
its four siblings
you and me

No comments: