I Saw a Field of Flowers

Oh, I have committed a horrible atrocity.
I slaughtered down the raw and ripe,
Blooms that were so big they seemed to cradle the sunlight
And colors so bright I swore them to be painted.
I stripped every last one of their natural coverings.
(I even accidentally snapped a few frail necks along the way.)
And after I dumped out the remaining sunlight, and butterflies, and bugs, and summer days
That were concealed so cleverly between their folds,
I imprisoned them in cold glass,
Where the softness of soil once clung strong against their roots.

And I sold them,
Cutting off our ties with a swift stroke of my knife and flick of my wrist,
Their fate was sealed looking at their old home through a kitchen window,
Or finding a new home in the hopeful walls of a hospital,
Or in the embrace of a lover who will forever gaze upon them
In dreams and fantasies.
Maybe their fate was not so bad.

But I saved a few.
Too morally conscience to send them all off,
The lucky ones came home with me,
The short ones were tucked behind my ear,
And the especially stunning ones were tied with a bow and love
And given to my grandmother
To remind her of the days of
Dandelions, Queen Anne’s Lace, and occasional Buttercup (because your sweet)
Tied together in my intertwined hands,
Waiting for hers to receive.

But the perfect ones:
Oh! Their faultless symmetry
Was what made me punish them the worst.
I would take them to a field of uniformed headstones and find the grave of a friend.
There they would be placed gently down,
Catching my tear drops,
And sentenced to forever listening to the silence
Held between the smothering space of stone and earth,
Back where they were once found.