Tulips

1. 

Frail petals do not last.  

They clasp the sun, transmute to living color
light that runs
like wine
or sand through fingers, 
whether grasped by hands that pick
or caught fast on film.

The light glows Chinese red this Easter month
in praise of rain and mud
and, sometimes, snow.
Each face is lifted up, each cup is raised
to fill and empty once, 
then tossed once drained. 

I would not like in years still left to miss
the light perfume of hair, 
the kiss of lips; 
still more
the blood of tulips marching, marking time
like soldiers lined up straight
at that abyss,
waiting only for the whistle: 
up and over.

2.

I look ahead with clocks to growing light, 
amazed how stems of tulips, 
thin as prayer, 
support each tulip's height.

Since youth I've loved
their clarity of color, how the air
itself is clarified and how a rain, 
if gentle, can ignite a tulip's flame
as sure and bright as fire. 

All the same, 
the image does not last. Tulips are brief
and incandescent merely. 
Purely rhymed, 
they raise cups once in blessing, 
then are gone.

3.

April is cruel, all right, and so are lips, 
made as they are of flesh. 

Lips would hang on and smile and kiss forever, 
boredom’s crime,

if sex were always good, if only shame
were not the ready answer. 

Petals droop.  
Our eyes do not see clearly. 
Hands are raised to strike or to defend. 

It's nature's way, 
and we are nature's children. 

In the end, 
it's only stems we’re left with, 
that and bulbs  

we plant and feed with meal
and sometimes thin.

In June we cut our losses, 
mash stems in black plastic garbage bags
like so much trash.

4. 

I stand in awe of armies, how they’re joined
in will and common purpose
that they themselves
so seldom understand 

why they should plant
bulbs walked in swaths like carpets, 
laying down, 
a fire that will come.

And come it does, not timidly nor tired.  

Black earth flings in utter bud abandon
flash on flash,
as tulip after tulip lights the sky
like shells
in a bombardment. 

You and I are slower to advance.  

It's mostly age. 

We toss stale hot cross buns
like spent grenades
for sustenance to sparrows, 
mice and ants.

5.

It is a step toward peace, at least our own,
a peace that comes sans effort,
slowing down
of hates, not loves, not ever.

Like wine, loves age.