After Margaret Did Not Believe How Soon Forsythias Turn Green
By Joe Benevento - Kirksville, Missouri, USA - 2 August 2013
Margaret was not grieving over golden
flowers deceiving as they gloried
bushes before leaving them emerald
into Fall. At six she could not
remember how soon April
makes December, how red buds',
magnolias', dogwoods' splendor
hardly lasts more than a week.
Margaret loves the forsythias'
little yellow flowers adorning
ours and neighbors' bushes,
collecting them, selecting also
tiny violets, other woodland wild
flowers to adorn an orange
juice glass proud to become a vase.
Blue-purple, white-pink and gold, these tiny
blossoms stay bright as long as their outdoor
cousins but soon top trash ready for discarding,
as Margaret's miscalculations of how long
Spring blossoms linger, will work themselves
away as naturally as May kneels towards
summer's passion. This year, though, she will
probably lament how soon the maples, oaks
and hickories lose their leaves' final fire. For me
resignation leaves nothing left to long for,
so it is Margaret I mourn for.