For the Love of Flowers

Brush strokes laid down,
dabs of color blurred by tears,
a permanent bouquet.

Flowers for remembrance,
for celebration, for gratitude –
they’re all on the canvas.

My father’s roses
perfuming the plane ride home,

A bouquet dried
after a rainy outdoor wedding,
trashed after the divorce.

Roses from a lover now gone,
blood-red petals and grief
scattered in the gutter.

Dozens of bouquets
on my mother’s grave,
gone in three days – policy.

Yet here they are
in this misty bouquet,

All the faded flowers
of my memories
dewy and beautiful again,

Misty through welling eyes,
just like the day they arrived,

For remembrance, for celebration,
for gratitude.

For love.