Perhaps it is because they very simply
loved wild poppies,
or the unexpected press of wind.

Learning early of that airless, evacuated space
of love to come
they kept ready the guestroom,
hemmed the waiting into their very clothes.

That there are these persisting towers
yearning crazily despite Babylon,

rising up from the dish of the dead's affirmation
like a stamen from a spring of pollen.