Red Tulips

art by Baslee Troutman

Before you died,

you planted red tulips in the front yard

You never asked us first if we wanted red tulips

but I didn’t mind because they were beautiful

After you died,

the tulips still bloomed each spring,

pushing up through the snow and hard earth,

rising from the dead

It seemed to me somehow metaphorical

Spiritually significant

Then the rabbits ate the red petals,

leaving only headless stick-like green bodies

and the voles and squirrels ate the wintering bulbs 

Now we have no tulips

I’m not sure what the metaphor is supposed to be

but I see you looking down,

shaking your head,

laughing.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Challenge, April, Come She Will

Farewell To Youth

Café au lait on peach pale skin

The ripeness of the fleshy meat

The juice that runs so dark and sweet

Let wisdom’s wine run down the chin.

Yes, bid farewell to callow youth

Whose verdant fruit’s so bitter raw

And drape oneself in golden straw

Aged perfectly through years of truth.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Envelope Quatrain, In Memoriam