Out of Water
By Marie Ponsot
A new embroidery of flowers, canary color,
dots the grass already dotty
with aster-white and clover.
I warn, “They won’t last, out of water.”
The children pick some anyway.
In or out of water
children don’t last either.
I watch them as they pick.
Still free of what’s next
and what was yesterday
they pick today.
Copyright Credit: From Springing: New and Selected Poems by Marie Ponsot, copyright © 2002 by Marie Ponsot. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.