FLOWERS, THE WORLD AND MY FRIEND, THOREAU
—William Bronk
It no longer matters what the names of flowers are.
Some I remember; others forget: ones
I never thought I should. Yes, tell me one.
I like to hear that. I may have forgotten again
next week. There's that yellow one whose name
I used to know. It's blossoming, secure
as ever as I walk by looking at it,
not saying its name or needing to.
Henry, it's true as you said it was, that this
is a world where there are flowers. Though it isn't our truth,
it's a truth we embrace with gratitude:
how should we endure our dourness otherwise?
And we feel an eager desire to make it ours,
making the flowers ours by naming them.
But they stay their own and it doesn't become our truth.
We live with it; we live with othernesses
as strangers live together in crowds. Truths
of strangeness jostle me; I jostle them
walking past them as I do past clumps of flowers.
Flowers, I know you, not knowing your name.
____________________
—Medusa
