Poems are flowers. They are meant to wither
and vanish. They go wherever voices go
when voices grow mute. Words fail. Neither
mind nor meaning keeps last night's moon- glow?
Poems are flowers. They are meant to wither.
So pin this poem in your boutonniere,
but know it will be gone like a faithless wife.
And all of us with it. And everything here.
Unless in God's ear it has a second life.
Poems are flowers. They are meant to wither.