Image from contest holder's page by enrique:An abstract..
They unfold where bells ring, mothers point, fathers salute,
superlatives babble, ticker-tape showers explode, paparazzi
struggle, then blitz ... all for the honored ones, cultivated by an era.
Blooms aerate airs of spring, burst in summer, nod their heads
through gardens of indulgence and wither
to a red pulse of autumnal blood.
Tides at the full, with moon as trigger, slide inexorably back.
Shoals from the drowned great groan from their silence,
each a defiant minion of their age.
Who sang for Mozart in crystal, clear voice?
What requiem resounded from choir stalls to nave as he slid
quietly in shade, frozen as ice, from death-cart to communal grave?
Tomorrow will flick heroes by,
replace them metronomically or if not,
dynamite their effigies, with conflict in the social weather.
Do the favored ones know that? Ah! Red blood of youth: how it pales!
Winter rains eradicate color;
drops dribble down grey stems of flowers.
Watch! For the sun is quenched by the ocean.
The moon's quiet honor is routinely bitten into;
high breezes bend rainbows.
Fired stars pause in luster, bleached by cloud.
As from a fireball, cruel fates
detonate overhead.
Heroes leave faint shadows
on a far pavement
downtown from fame.
If not dimmed by quaint legends,
stars of exalted ones spark
then set to their own deepness.
Look! The gardens are featureless.
Winter has come: Flowers no longer are radiant,
effulgent; hoar-frosts efface and decimate.
Extinction lies veiled hours by hours, before and after,
foreordained, sniffs leaf mold
and worms reach out, radial and efficient, actuate there,
the wilting of red flowers.
Adding your comment:
I'm glad that you were chosen to be Hood-Winked today and I hope you enjoy it 
