The Interment of Flowers

Some grieve the grandeur

And some bury love

but mine is the interment

Of flowers



If lilies could speak

If the dew had words

If small wild onions, or

 perfumed magnolias

Could tell the centuries story

In one fine moment

Of linen white life

And then the grace of

falling silent

In drifts and waves

Of snows of discretion

Mine is the burial

of Roses

Mine is the requiem

Of the Orchid

Mine is the grave

Of a sweet cana lily



And I would sing

If not bound 

To an earth filled

With the blood of flowers

in brief blooms

Daylight lives and 

turns of shadows

in undetermined deaths



As many as the lives

of men

Of Women and singing children

Who were certain

Theyalso were immortal.



Mine is the burial of flowers.



Mine is the naming of Stars

Refusing the count

In favor of meaning



Mine is the wind in the graves

Singing silenced songs

Mine is the great hymn

of those refusing lies



Accepting fatal random ends

Rather than abandon

To lost doors



Mine is the beauty

The Great Aesthetic

The harmonics of a

   white canvas strewn

with lilacs, and

 a moment sparrow

whose life fades in 

then out

but the song is feather laid



Each lily life

Each sentinel song

Each parting hand

Is cast

In a divine Garden

cast in a cobalt black night

in tapestry turns



But mine is the interment

of flowers

Also in Press: Int'l League of Poets, A Treasure of American Poets.