Life is a dream to one, a harsh reality to another; a field of flowers, a prison yard. And here is one of the guards, who thinks it is both, watching a butterfly as it passes over the wall. The guard is killed in an accident on the way home. Somehow, he remembers it all. There are flowers at his funeral. They are in bunches and rows, and they remind him of his pretty little girls. “Wake up, Daddy. Mommy’s home.”
August 19, 2020
.
Not One Child at the Flower Show
Not one child at the flower show —
and then I thought,
Yes, of course — the flowers themselves.
(
A grave, the size of a shoe box,
on the shelf, all else a dream.
)
Thus, out of a poem — sticks, petals,
solitude, and whatever else.
The aged, in their hats, looking back.
Looking back — except that now, for some reason,
I remember there were children everywhere.
There were babies just a few weeks old,
frowning, like prunes in the sunlight,
when their heads should have been covered.
Good heavens — fancy that.
Not one flower at the child show?
Surely I was someone, somewhere, sometime, else.
Oh, I know — I was a flower, myself.
And you — you were there.
Recently Banned Literature, September 8, 2015
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Categories: New Poems & Pieces, Recently Banned Literature
Tags: Aging, Children, Diaries, Dreams, Flowers, Journals, Love, Memory, Poems, Poetry, Prunes
William Michaelian 