Second Farewell

[carose59]

Second Farewell

I went out today to tell the flowers you were gone.

I started with the outlaws,
                    the ones back behind the grocery.
                  When I met them, the grocery wasn't there yet.
                   They're still there, those outlaws, growing, thriving,
                                                                   blooming.
        Weeds they are, maybe,
I don't know.
I don't know any of their names except for the sweet-peas.
                     They're still alive, growing,

 they're still alive.

The morning-glories, my familiars, haven't blossomed this year.
I suspect they're in mourning as well.
                            ('Mourning-glories'?
  Would you smile at that one?  It's a bad pun, but still, I see you smiling.)
            The little tree that was sent to comfort me is dying.
            Hell, I can't keep anything alive this summer.

I walked a long way.
I spoke to flowers behind fences--the prisoners and the willing captives, 
                                                    the domesticated beauties.
I spoke to the dandelions.
I wondered if Queen Anne's Lace was named for Anne Boleyn (it was) and I told it
      you were gone. 


I talked to the trees.
(Don't laugh.)
They never listen to me.  But I told them anyway.

I spoke to the painted daisies in the grocery,
    though they knew.  They were the first to come
 after you had gone,
    bright and hopeful in the gloom.

The exotic, purple latecomers--
                                                  I didn't know their names--
only just vacated their place last week.
You would have liked them.

I told the wild grapes that grow in the drive, the deadly-nightshade,
I told the honeysuckle and the yews,
I told the pear tree outside our window.
I told the wild, climbing things I don't know the names of,
and the spot where the lilies-of-the-valley bloom and fade.  I told them all 
that you were gone.