The Flower Was a Woman

The flower was a woman.
The woman was a flower.
The yellow glow of sick flows,
paused long enough to give life.
And the woman gave birth
without the benefit of a husband or a midwife.
And the sun glowed strangely in the night.
menacing and low, moving dripping darkness,
putting out a dark red glow,
that sickened all who on it gazed.
But the woman was a flower, and the flower was a woman.
And after the death passed and left death all around,
the flower rose up again and bloomed.
And though objectively she seemed doomed.
She was a reminder of the persistence of life.
If our forefathers observed a rainbow,
our generation sees a flower.
A token that life will go on,
even if we dry up and whither away.

Christopher H. Holte