It’s nothing we say to the Floribunda rose
flaunting its silk deep into autumn.
Nothing we say to the Sourwood leaves,
an orange blaze under the first snowfall.
And nothing ever whispered to the charred limbs
of the ginko, insisting to bloom through Hiroshima.
It’s no surprise human prayers crowd the sky,
race across galaxies seeking the eternal.
Still, this life, this one life, is all that is certain.
Yet how mysterious that we tell the dying,
our presence their anchor to love’s salvation,
it’s time to let go.
(first published in Catamaran)