Our flowers will leave us
It is a strange season
look at the folds in the clouds
that are not there. There are no folds
and no clouds and
the birds all flock and hug and sing along
in this bright diamond rain
It must mean something
An odd portent
from an odd cloud
that isn’t even there, a mere certainty
without form, the knowledge these departures must happen
the fates arriving like storms in the distance
easily known, unchanging, unavoidable
The flowers will leave us –our babies –
the poet aspidistra will leave us on a bus
she will say goodbye but no more for many years
The lover oleander will say goodbye and promise
cards cards gifts gifts words words words
cards cards gifts gifts words words
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and then
the yellow rose with the old guitar will
take up praying because of this misfortune
without mouth word or thought
in the desert on our small couch
breathing right here in a home without ears
to hear such emotion such plangent thought
just a large back to turn
stoned, silenced
They will all take up limbs
they do not have
to sort themselves out
in buses and songs of peace
and will walk and sing and dance along
by some walking flower miracle
among once-white roses drenched in blush
and honey-sotted bees
in fields of starlings
and sparrows and skirmishing mockingbirds
They will run from us. Our flowers are leaving us
to make of such a war not peace
but a sullen humid quiet that whistles
with the occasional firework and no more
Circled by hummingbirds, (we thought there would be ravens just for us,
but no ravens to come collect their due, our souls, resolving us)
we will read the leaves that rustle
in each and every photo
every piece of news
odd portents
from an odd cloud.
We flowers have clung
to the idea of flight
and I have at last designed the air
to find you once again
my children
and I will follow
gushing, joyous
with every crumb of every blue song you’ve sung
and every apple graced with a worm
found along these new and gnarled paths
The policing blackbirds will find
that we have all already flown
to where we do not know
Our flowers have left us
and we will follow
It is a strange season
© 2013 Michael Pacholski
Michael Pacholski
Pilgrim Flowers Take To The Air In Search
