A Scrap in Time

Something about the relentless beauty

of the dahlias this year makes me forget

lists and calls and news and aches as

I stand beside them in a splendor stupor,

watching them bloom in real time, not

wanting to miss a moment of the long stems

rising, the red color deepening then fading

from the petals as they age. I imagine a time lapse

begins, and the world’s winter white, then greening

again, and now a hundred years pass,

now five hundred, a thousand, and the garden

bed is gone and the fence is gone and

the trees and the ditch and the home

are gone, and there’s no way to know

this was once a place where dahlias grew.

Is it any wonder, then, I call to you, ask you

to come stand here with me to watch

the dahlias open themselves to the sun,

each petal a hymn to the present,

a history soon to be forgotten, a shimmer in time

we might put in a vase and marvel as

all around it the whole world spins.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer