The Flower

“The Flower”

I wish to reach into the ashes
Where yesterday fades from the sky.
I am prepared for the journey,
Though I cannot see through my tears
The sun falling back into the stars,
And setting with the dawn.

I know there is no returning
From the years that have passed away.
My eyes stray to the same tomorrow
I have lived without end—
—Without a heart drenched in the setting sun.
Everything is the same as it never was
And nothing has changed, as it always has been.

Dare I trust where I have walked before?
Or do I recall the roads I never traveled?
I know I lived those moments long ago,
For somewhere between dreaming and folly
I kissed a flower whose sweetness kills
With voices like phantoms by day.

I hear them—haunting with their flight.
They kiss me with their dreams,
But they are never sleeping.
And I fear to be free—
For so long this anguish has been home
That there is no solace in silence.

I turn my sight to yesterday.
Is there redemption in pain?
The agony! Is it enough to satisfy you
O Flower whose sweetness kills?
In youth I took you into the bell jar,
If I but could find yesterday
I would return you to the Earth!

The voices are screaming terribly,
And your petals are of gold.
Tomorrow, I die, and you remain
In my hands and to my lips.
What of you will follow me
Into a tomorrow that never shall dawn?

O! sweet Flower that kills
With voices that speak of Hell!
Was it my doing? Or was it a road untraveled?
Did our paths cross truly in the rays of death,
In mortal beams of a cold and dying sun?
From what poison garden? From what poison garden?

© 2022 Marten Hoyle