The Art Of Dying

Flowers, duty completed,
hasten to leave the field
for daughter fruit to shape
and ripen. Some
wither away unnoticed.
Some smell none too sweet,
The iris makes an ugly fist at it:
the lily scarcely better.
Violets hang their heads
lower than ever.

Others turn need to art.
The cherry makes a wedding of her funeral.
Roses add petal after petal
to their own pot pouri.
A dandelion closes to a brush
and then reopens as a globe of shuttlecocks
for child or wind to blow:
while the hibiscus furls a neat umbrella
in a mirror–movement
of the opening bud.

Whatever style preferred
a flower never mourns
her own decease.
That is for us.