Through all the verdant clover,
And the rich, black humus,
There grew one flower,
So sweet and soft and
Somehow magical.

As the winds blew behind
the rickety farmhouse
with its wood stove
And happy family,
The flower blossomed.

The little daughters,
With their homely sundresses
And radiating, pure faces,
Would run by playing,
Brushing the bloom
In happy oblivion.
Like a smile from a stranger
or an embrace from a schoolmate,
A second of sharing
hopes and dreams and fears.

But then the father
Packed them all up,
Selling the swing set
to strangers,
Leaving the field barren,
no lush carpet of Luck,
Just angry houses of bees.

And a boy came by,
Drunk out of his mind,
Cackling with his friends
As he walked through the old graves.

He plucked that flower,
to give to some other girl,
One of his many.
Right out of her warm earth,
Her stem snapped,
Jagged.


Still, she refused
Beauty for him,
Or anyone.
Her petals drooped,
Then dried,
Then shattered
Into dust.

His mother, frustrated with his mess,
Swept her up and tossed her
Straight out of the window,
“No trash in my house.”

Their loss:
That flower took all
Her sweetness,
Her softness,
Her magic,
and became part of
That ground that bore her,
Dust to Dust.

And out of that rich, black humus,
And the verdant clover,
Came blooms
Upon blooms
Upon blooms.
And it was only then,
That her true beauty truly shown
Among the sunbeams and the shrubbery and the sky.