White and undriven — the billowing drifts
the spring it buries does not yet know
the beauty it carries beneath the snow
to shine upon the world — to merely exist.

To be such a flower, nature's delicate gift.
I relish their smile and call out to them so
but is it macabre to smile when their petals blow?
To look upon their death with the same rose-tints?

What would I give for such simple design:
to reach to the heavens and flower just once
and then to pass after my first occurrence,
to not weather the woes of repetition and time.

Or the rose-tint is as good on theirs as on mine,
maybe I, too, will have a charming last pulse —
like a falling of petals, like a crescendo and crux
and all at once, like leaves it will fall, all my malign.