The Flowering Memories

[for Susannah Foster and Doctor Willie Pietri]

If some nice person
Were to be walking by the front of my house
and would pick a flower from the breasts
of my small garden,
I would notice every single one that would be missing.
I would be able to notice their long necks broken
and their juices gathered up at the tips of their wounds
like teardrops, brightly as fresh bleeding blood.
O All the surviving flowers would turn their heads
in dread, crying soft petals on the faces of the grass.
All the bees of the Universe would pass by with their grief;
The wind would blow sadly the memory of their smells
As butterflies would go in a hurry
                                                         fluttering
                                                               the sad news to their friends . . .
Just like—
                     Quite Suddenly,
                                   One lonely, long and lonesome night
                                        on which you've
                                                              tossed&turned
                                            inside your head
                                                                        —Fearing!
That in a dream—Just Now
                                               You felt
               Someone You Love                         is far
                                                                                thus, they may be Dead . . .
In the Great Distance of your late mother's love;
Across the Vast Field where your father's past would call,
Rippling wide, and wider a wave forever
    fading in a pond,
where you once so merrily played your youth away—
O, All the kisses and the pretty girls' faces now gone
In the utter restlessness that transforms midnight to dawn,
You see the Shadows passing by, 
                                                            "Goodbye! . . .
                                                                                      from Earth, to the Sky
                                                                        To be with their God.

Copyright Credit: Jesús Papoleto Melendez, "The Flowering of Memories" from Borracho [Very Drunk]. Copyright © 2020 by Jesús Papoleto Melendez.  Reprinted by permission of 2Leaf Press.
Source: Borracho [Very Drunk] (2Leaf Press, 2020)