Wilted Flowers
by Steven Craig
I have struggled with the end game, the final choice of pieces played by us as we danced in the grip of final dependence on a reality not ours, but of ourselves. I have played with the notion that it was all a madly brewed experience that failed to boil and froze in the veins of a life we made without seeing. I know only that the last rose of summer is gone.
In all my efforts, I traveled far down the road to seek your pleasure, your happiness and your contentment with life. I battled the forces arrayed against you and sheltered you from the storm that ever sought you out. When in need, my strength was there, in need my tenderness was there, in need, my shield fended off the strokes hurled against you. But always, without the need to call upon demands or tax, my love was there, freely embracing you.
I saw the chaos, I saw the fear, the masks, the hiding. I saw you running away, I saw pieces of you blown away, I saw beautiful parts of you washed away. I enfolded them all, and held them together and in all ways great and small, helped you make yourself whole again. Still, with all that intimacy I thus gave you, you took that wonderful gift I presented you as one would the plain brown paper wrapper of a dearly sought parcel and tore it from your life. You never found the parcel you were seeking, because it was not at the heart of the package, but was instead the whole and all of that you took for granted.
Often, the most simple and easy things in life are the ones that we destroy. I made for you a home that I did not ask you to leave. I shared with you a life that I did not ask you to depart from. I offered you all that I could ever offer, and never sought from you its equal. I made for you a space for all you held dear, and never asked that you throw it out. I sent you to the distant shores and to the Henry Mountains, and never told you that you could never return.
But despite the powers of the universe given me and wielded in my hands, you spun off into your own reckless, heedless universe as a puppet, the hand and foot strings controlled solely by the chaotic tempest of your mind. And laid waste to my fields and emptied my heart and froze forever the warmth of my singing your name in the evening. And for what great cause, was it really only that you could not tell your mother that you lived with me ... was that really the coin for which you sold my life. I will always wonder as in the evening of the day, when I sit and watch the children play.
Do not seek me to embrace you as you grow old, it will be hollow and cold. Do not seek from me comfort for the days pains, for I have given mine to my memories and can no longer care. Do not look to me to water the wilted flowers, for I did not cut them in their prime and place them in an empty vase on such a sunny day.
06/23/2006
