Chrysanthemums

I am gone,
A memory,
A broken beam of light,
Diffuse in time,
A fading afterthought
But, even so,
A part of me
Still lives:
A silent remnant
That can’t be seen;
It roams the earth,
Rises through the silver sheen
Of jeweled spring nights,
Races through clover
And grassy thickets,
Flies like leaves,
Falls from the sky
Like grey rain,
Lands in a twist
And floats again,
Swirls in the breeze
And surfs the wind;
This is how it is
And always will be;
No one knows,
No one sees
But, strange to say,
I am still alive
In the hearts and minds
Of chrysanthemums
Over which I fly;
Living seas of chrysanthemums,
Thick across the fields,
Grand nations, yellow and red;
They call my name,
They sing,
They comfort me
As I pass by,
Each and every time
And this is what
They say to me:

“It’s warm today
Quite perfect,
And the breeze is right;
The earth is moist,
It soothes our roots;
We don’t know who we are
But we love the day,
Embrace the night;
We breathe and love
And love each breath;
Nurtured, cossetted,
By earth and air;
We are alive
And life itself
Surges through
Our stems and veins;
We stretch our leaves
And the gentle petals
Of our floret coats;
We dance in the rain,
We salute the sun
When he comes around;
We don’t know
Who we are
But we stir,
Turn slow
In the world in which
We find ourselves,
Some world, this world
And you as well,
You who are in the world,
One in the world,
Like each of us.”

I can’t reply
But they know me well,
Better than I know myself;
They tip their petals
On sunny days as I fly by,
Each and every time.

Walter Weinschenk is an attorney, writer and musician. Until a few years ago, he wrote short stories exclusively but now divides his time equally between poetry and prose. Walter's writing has appeared in a number of literary publications including the Carolina Quarterly, Lunch Ticket (Amuse-Bouche), Cathexis Northwest Press, Beyond Words, Griffel, The Raw Art Review and others. His work is due to appear in forthcoming issues of the Iris Literary Journal, The Banyan Review, Sand Hills Literary Magazine and Lighthouse Weekly. Walter lives in a suburb just outside Washington, D. C.