One Flower

I've begun to grow attached to the idea of adding an extra line at the end of my final verses, as you can no doubt tell. I feel it lends a certain finality, by managing to be both outside and not outside the structure of the poem. It's a little like my own equivalent to Emily Dickinson's half-rhymes, which are often found to close her works.


One Flower

One flower from the bonny fold,
a thousand blossoms bright,
in russet red and royal gold
and all so green and slight,
was taken up in hand to hold,
as any hand, in passing purchase, might.

It was no wilder than those
that stood in close array.
It showed no choice pitch nor pose;
its crest, a common splay
of color as might cap a rose
or complement the hummingbirds at play.

What singular absurdity
that it should bear, beneath
its cultivated jubilee
and ordinary sheath,
a graceful heart of high degree
to cloister it upon the constant heath.

For yet, within, and so withdrawn,
this flower was as rare
as ever saw the early dawn
or drew the draughty air,
and now that it is plucked and gone,
I fear no fleeting bloom could be as fair.

But still, some other may arise,
one day, to take a hold
upon my open hands and eyes,
far worthier than gold,
and so I wait upon surprise
and wander through the flowers in the fold
for fitter heart, unfit though I, and old.