Life And Death

A flower arrangement, Life and Death:

a mixture of all-brown sedum tops

and this year’s chives about to bloom,

spears of purple, pointed heads

sticking up through the dead sedum,

along with plain shafts of green.

It’s pretty and I am pleased with it,

but after a while, the chives open,

it loses charm and has to come down.

Dumping the water in the kitchen sink

I remark the decaying, oniony smell.

Life goes rotten and fails.

Has Death more enduring power?

I pitch the chives outside in the yard,

come back in and wash the vase,

repacking dead sedum alone.

It is soft and slimy along the stems,

alive with invisible life.