Author, Poet, Photographer
"And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose"
Dylan Thomas
"Look, we don’t love like flowers, with only a single season behind us;"
Rilke
Flowers lay here,
Dissipating futures
On a dark wind.
Growing; as in our absence
Mountains moved,
Plains settled and grew still.
Enduring chance mutations
Long before aesthetic seasons
Forced their glory
From an ancient breed,
Yet they had need of us,
For it was us
Who gave them name,
Who rearranged each double helix,
Creating fresh displays
Fit for bouquets of death.
We’ve learned to live,
Aware all dying wreaths
And we, once shared
The same first stirring
In primeval seas.
Where such potential moved
That we can mould each fading flower,
And are grown mute to tell
Their glory how decay
Shall place our song
Of their short seasons
Against the scale
Which moves the stars.
For, who recalls a poppy
At the gates of Troy,
Or names which garland
Wreathed Achilles’ tomb?
What flower loves the seed
From which it came,
Or sees the beauty
In another’s bloom?
©James Rainsford