Spent Blooms – a poem by Karen McAferty Morris

Spent Blooms
 
In full dark deer graze on the amaryllis.
In daytime the shorn stems join
other evidence of altering.
             Hydrangea heads faded from china blue,
             Daisies gone to seed,
             my shoes peppered with their soft flat burrs.
Gone all the blossoms
             that through spring and summer
             I walked among for their gentle
             and buoyant company.
They swallowed the long days of dew, sun, storm
            swelled, bloomed
            gave all they had.        

We stand at autumn’s farthest edge,
             as on ancient maps where nothing
             beyond was known.
The north wind sweeps away warmth,
            sings of epilogues and endings.

Some will claw their green way up once more
Some are finished, will never taste
            the spacious air again.

Beyond the fading chrysanthemums,
             the shush and roll of the river,
             unstoppable, illuminating,
             show me the secret to acceptance.

Even if there is more to come, time must be well spent.

 

Karen McAferty Morris writes about nature and ordinary people. Her poetry, recognized for its “appeal to the senses, the intellect, and the imagination,” has appeared in Persimmon Tree, Sisyphus, The Louisville Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Black Fox Literary Journal, and Lyric Magazine. Her collections Elemental (2018), Confluence (2020), and Significance (2022) are national prize winners. She is lucky enough to live on Perdido Bay in the Florida panhandle.