I Am A Flower Collector 07/28/93

"I am a flower collector," I said
with a flourish and with a wince.
"My hands are scratched from reaching
blindly into briar patches
at the sight of color breaching
through the prickers and the
bush and drying leaves."

Now as I rub my hands in
salve and aloe to take away
the sting this day has come
and gone and left me shy
one short of century ten
decades minus 1, that's 99
and I collect until my
fingers shred and bleed and then
I simply can no more and
as the reddish haze of
sunset dims the fervor of
my flowers hue I see that
there is one more left it's
hidden dark and blue...

And a memory rushed back
of a dream in winter months
before I ever plucked a stem
a woman said to me

"I would that
you were 99 flowers
and I was your first one hundredth
and deep into the moment
you pulled me out."

And as the clouds filter the
dimming sun these prickers
taste a taste that's new, the taste
of salve and aloe as it skims
onto their thorns and reaching
instant deep I reach a
square of ten in record time
my first