Pink Flower Of Her Death

Pink Flower Of Her Death
© Surazeus
2018 04 18

Walking from the quaint cafe back to work,
where she types copy for advertising agents,
Carol stops by the river gleaming gray
as the chalkboard in her third grade classroom,
and cradles the pink flower between her fingers.
"I wish I could hold my grief like this flower
so it would bloom from my heart without pain."

The sudden breeze rustles leaves of the trees,
like children in the twilight whispering secrets.
"My mother once bloomed pretty like this flower
but then cancer devoured her gentle spirit.
She suffered agony so quietly
I could hear scream of horror in her silence.
But she believed in God, and I do not.
I have no faith in divine afterlife
so I cannot survive in sweet delusion
that gave her hope as she faded away."

Pressing the soft pink flower to her cheek,
Carol stares at gold sunlight on the river
and feels the turning world pause in blue space.
"Like generations of flowers that bloom
are the lives of mortal men doomed to die.
They blossom bright with delicate petals
now, but soon wind will scatter wilted petals
across the indifferent Earth, but again
new buds will spring from twisted limbs of trees
and beautify the world with calm acceptance.
Though my mother died, and soon I will die
from cancer that devours my mind and soul,
yet my daughter lives with joy in her eyes.
One generation blossoms into life
as another wilts and fades into death.
Homer always knows how to cheer me up."

Sitting on the park bench under the willow,
Carol watches long gold leaves sway in wind,
and she dreams the whole history of the world
while becoming sunlight glittering the river.
"Just as we believe that all sincere Art
must be organic with its Time, like the flower,
so we insist what is actual and vital
for the living who never think of death
is ineffectual and unactual for ghosts
who still walk around in bodies of flesh."

Carol slips the small bottle from her purse,
along with the photo of her young daughter
making her princess mask in third grade class.
After gazing at the sparkle of joy
glowing red in the eyes of the young girl
in the photo, Carol drinks the whole bottle.
"I am the pink flower of the weeping moon."

Wind tugs the photo from her fragile hand
which does not try to snatch it from the void
so it twirls spirals with last breath of her heart,
then lands on the dark surface of the river.
Down into the deep silent painless void
Carol and the photo float toward the light
still glowing from the first flash of creation.