~ELIZABETH KIRSCHNER~

THE CREAMY GARDENIA

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            —for Suzann


On the saddest day in the saddest year of your life,
a child will bring you a creamy gardenia
in a glass of milk. This isn’t a prediction,
this is truth, clear as the stream that flows
from a rainbow that will never disappear.

Nor will you. Not now. Not soon.
Not while the faded blossom blooms again,
not while bird song fills the air with motes of light,
not while you sip the milk in the glass
holding the creamy gardenia that child gave you:
death’s prophecies are buried beneath the earth’s dark hide.

Summer traps lacy ferns in vesper-scented breezes
billowing from oceans of air: this
is what you breathe as though it were
your own spirit. Perhaps it is, you
who dance with each and every follower of bliss.


 

© by Elizabeth Kirschner