Housatonic
Daily, I wondered at the chrysanthemums living on long past their time along the sunny, south-facing garage foundation.
Their royal purple blooms, stemming from the dark finality of the year’s color spectrum, were foreign, tardy, even discomfiting in December’s weightless light.
I wondered at their mute tenacity.
I wondered a few weeks earlier about a single forsythia twig blooming April-yellow in the depths of November.
I wonder about its own inevitably. When its brethren green up and flower this spring, will it bloom again?
Will it skip the gold and hurry to the green? Or will it, its life spent out futile in early dark, poke out brown, spare and lean as death’s bony finger amid spring’s rebirth?
What doesn’t it understand of time’s inevitability? Its certainty?
Damn its wrong-headed birth and untimely death.
Damn its temporary, hopeless and misleading glow.
Damn its anachronistic and false promise.
