Poetry Wednesday: "Dogwood"
A lush immaculate bough before the door
Unfolding some conception at its core
Is always ramifying to something more.
Their bracts emerge, by structure and effect,
Out of the clustered flowers they protect
When blind things in the soil resurrect,
Their wounded stars an oriflamme unfurled
In some dominion sightless and impearled
Where latent angels traverse worlds in worlds.
Ephemeral portal of eternity,
Imperfect and complete analogy,
Encycled ending, present destiny.
Hold over me, when I am still and mute,
The standard of the white departed shoot
As an emblem of the last and the first fruit.
So may some spirit wandering by the lawn
After its last illumined flower is shorn
Look up and see the end of all things born.
I will depart one last time in the rain
Their aching branches, staring with a pain
To flee their lucid shade, and to remain.