stealthily the little one walks upon frail gestures of earth and cold;
a flower too bright to see and too dark to remain unnoticed,
whose enormous curve of tiny flesh takes on forms perfumed
with scents found hardly in the doorways of youth

I, the fracas of an accused moon laden with lonely nights,
hear none of the cloaked visions wafting on fragranced air

instead, and only because we see not in light,
him alone bequeaths a new and immense swoon
too silver to feel
and too heavy to see

along the wrath of blossoms we walk
and amongst the petals who so quickly wish,
in the windows of old age,
to be more than toward us

exactly have I the answer to his question
which I have not heard

and a frail flower walking in its silent death beseeches

— — — — — — — — — —

Photos:

[1] Mexican hat (Ratibida columnaris)

[2] Crimsoneyed rosemallow (a.k.a. swamp-rose mallow or rose mallow; Hibiscus moscheutos)

[3] Western ironweed (a.k.a. Baldwin’s ironweed; Verbesina baldwinii)

[4] Scarlet hibiscus (a.k.a. Texas star, scarlet rose mallow or summer poinsettia; Hibiscus coccineus)

[5] Crimsoneyed rosemallow (a.k.a. swamp-rose mallow or rose mallow; Hibiscus moscheutos)

[6] Evening rainlily (a.k.a. evening-star rain-lily or Drummond rain-lily; Cooperia drummondii [sometimes Zephyranthes drummondii])

[text originally posted as a song of adolescent ivory; reposted because it needed flowers]