Of Flowers

I’m sitting at my desk, drinking hot tea of

.         chamomile,

.     peppermint,

.   licorice,

and honey. There’s a book open, in the pool of lamp light. It’s William Carlos Williams’s Collected Poems, at “Asphodel.” Reading it is like descending, step by step, into a deep sorrow, from

.   root,

.     to leaf,

.       to flower,

The one you hope will never open and unfold. The one you hope you will never see blossoming, billowing. Williams writes:

 

The poem

.                  if it reflects the sea

.                                      reflects only

its dance

.                 upon that profound depth

.                                     where

it seems to triumph.

.                  The bomb puts an end

.                                    to all that.

I am reminded

.                  that the bomb

.                                    also

is a flower