Poetry's Blossom (2010)

 
Part One: Lament

Poetry’s blossom is dying,
For insects have gnawed it away,
Devouring the petals still trying
To bloom for their funeral day;
But helpless, they wilt and decay.

Around it its ruins are lying,
The wreck of its forsaken past;
While earth in its sadness is sighing
That beautiful things cannot last
In the face of the plague and the blast.

Poetry’s blossom is crying –
The dirge of its silent despair;
The insects are tearing and prying
Till nothing is left that is fair,
But a song, trailing off in the air.




Part Two: Celebration

Were poetry’s blossom to die,
And a long and dark winter descend
To blanket the earth with the cry
Of the vicious, would loveliness end?
Would the heart at last despair and bend?

Were poetry’s blossom to fall
To the plague of the ugly and cruel,
If the blast of the storm and the squall
Should obscure the pure light of its jewel,
Would the passion of the heart grow cool?

Oh no!  For its bloom may subsist
Through the cruelest and bitterest cold,
When poets seem not to exist,
When the earth has grown tired and old,
And the only light is the gleam of gold.

Poetry’s blossom is gone,
And yet it shall never depart!
Its seed, though forgotten, sleeps on,
Awaiting the time when its art
May lighten once more the failing heart.

       

   
   
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