JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Touch them, touch them not
the flowers of my youth
the pale blue convolvulus
confused, spreading blue eyes
searching for more place
in the garden of my youth

My father called them weeds
ripped them from climbing walls
from beds, their creeper fingers
shrieking, dumped on grass cuttings,
dandelions, buttercups, daises
like fallen stars
shrieking in orange flames
pungent smoke
sweating in the heat, leaning on garden fork
he watched them dissolve
crumble into ash

 

He was so sure, my father
sure of the ways things are done
and not done, sure of what is flower
and what is weed

He did not touch, did not see
the flowers in my garden
tiny cuttings that escaped the fire
sleeping in earth for three decades
that now emerge
in the spring of my autumn
to cover all my world
with fragile pale blue blooms