Flowers in the colors of
highschool; I try to see them another way
but there they are—concession stands painted,
banners in the halls my feet remember.
I see these flowers, knights of faded gold,
seated on their horses all of purple.
But you see in that purple
something I don’t know the colors of—
the sky the night your father died, when the gold
sun rose & burned the silence in the way;
you hear the decades-muted voice, remember
the dirges, the happy-birthdays it painted.
And all these things are painted;
no heaven blazes forth from that bright purple,
these stars in commons violet don’t remember
the namesake days, the princely colors of;
they lack the finger joints to count the ways
time’s bankers have been light the promised gold.
And what’s in the hour’s gold
but flowers’ bloom by other brushes painted?
All princely glory’s nothing but the way
the light beds down in petal-folds of purple—
swaddling robes, spun in the colors of
tired eyes that un-nursed nights remember.
But if eyes can remember
in those rude hours the afterglow of gold,
why can’t the flowers know the colors of
their hands—outstretched for alms, daily painted
in yellow grace & sunk again in purple—
do they see nothing of the brighted way?
All things see that spring light’s way;
these flowers drink the world & do remember
in their purple selves a younger purple,
seeds of themselves that dreamed the promised gold,
dreamed your father’s grave a garden painted
in highschools, the flowering colors of.
When these colors of late spring go the way
of all things painted, I will remember
they were knights of gold on horses purple.