Daylilies are shooting stars,
flaming orange swords
across the grass sky.
The funnel-shaped flower
droops in my palm,
an open heart to my youth.
I should be pottering in the garden like you,
pruning, planting, watering.
But the boy loves his net-veined petals,
the innocence of what just grows where it can.
So you don’t agree with nature.
What else is new?
You roll up your shirt.
I let down my sleeves.
You expect so much from yourself.
I celebrate the contributions
of the wind and rain,
minerals in the soil.
If a flower vacillates,
your emotions fluctuate
My day lilies have their own reasons.
They merely interpolate mine.
So it’s you with your hose,
me with the weather,
you and your trowel,
me and my childhood keepsakes. .
You’re the instrument of a suburban God.
I’m content with the creator
who got it all right in the beginning.
Still, if that’s what you enjoy…
and if that’s just how I feel…
Gardens grow.
Wildflower flourish.
Beauty stands to reason.
And yet it desires none.
