ASH IS THE QUINTESSENCE

A universe of verdant tapestry

Outpaces each horizon’s mammoth rim;

The multitudes of lavish forestry

Shall make a soul with wonder overbrim.

Then beauty breathes its last as horror blooms

Into a vastness of great sylvan gore,

A dread arboreal expanse of tombs

That usher forth a mimicry of war.

Warfare itself shall gape with jealous awe

At Nature’s sheer, flamboyant suicide:

Devouring herself with flaming maw,

Trees’ bones picked clean that strew a countryside.

Death’s angel went on brutal holiday

Four years ago, and smote the living trees

As he did ancient pagan armies slay

Which menaced Israel with savageries.

As gray as newspaper and just as dead,

A haunting desolation conquers sight:

Charred skeletons whose flesh inferno fed

Upon to sate demonic appetite.

A generation hence, the flesh regrows

And leaf and bloom and sundry beasts shall dwell

Amid such picturesque and grand repose

Which germinated from the fires of hell.

APPLE BLOSSOMS

What luscious tufts of silk

Or clumps of virgin snow

Immune to heat!

Such bristling blades of milk

That grow

Along a city street.

Pieces of clouds on high

Shall nest on a green bough

With fragrance fair.

Expatriates of sky

Allow

The earth the grace of air.

This bridal ornament, 

That weds a pomp with such

Simplicity,

Proclaims through sight and scent

And touch

A soft sublimity.

The nascent summer’s pennant

Sandwiched between the cold

And torridness;

But a fortnight to tenant,

Unfold,

And wilt to nothingness.

Yet death of these is bliss;

A prospect cheers the heart – 

Autumnal treasure.

Sweet as a lover’s kiss

And tart

As lover’s sharp displeasure.

Rubies from pearls transmute

When summer wanes to cold.

The tomb of flowers

Becomes cradle of fruit –

Behold

The trove of Nature’s powers!