A White Flower Blooms in a Red Garden
the end, and the beginning
When I die: The bloomed-out pink of a peony nearest my head, a deer at the edge of the pine cluster, a soprano bird in the near limb of the river birch, the river birch peeling.
It will be a day like today begun with dahlias in the garden, lisianthus in full crown, something once said in my head, sky settled on the tongue of the bearded iris, and what you call metaphor
will be just my way of saying God
while the breeze carries by on the smooth stone back of a common turtle in the final syllable of the final hour. This morning,
in a clump of flowers that has always ripened red, a white stray with only a zest of that blood color at its prayerful center.
The end of something.
The near beginning.
What a glorious piece of writing.
Could this be any more lovely? I have read it over and then over again, and my heart always stops at the image of the bearded iris. My mother grew them in our yard and thank you for bringing me back there. So much beauty in this short piece.