When I first thought of death 2

When I first thought of death,

I thought of the anemone, 

red-mouthed, bold, a hush of fire

opening on a winter hillside.

It leaned into the light,

not afraid yet.

It said nothing: 

but I heard it clearly.

Like the kalaniyot in stories,

crimson and defiant

in the cracks of stone, 

they spoke of blood and spring,

of boys who never came home.

A symbol, they said.

Of peace. Of war.

Of memory pinned to the wind.

Then I thought more.

I thought of the cyclamen,

those bashful petals,

how we’d find them shy beneath rocks,

bend low to braid their blush into our hair.

Now halos are not flowers,

but flame, 

and children who should be naming petals

“he loves me, he loves me not”

lie still beneath dust.

Their hands will never finish the rhyme.

They should be weaving crowns

of narcissus,

not wearing smoke.

I thought of the Iris,

pale as breath,

rising from dry earth

like something holy.

My cousin bears its name, 

half flower, half fire, 

laughs like a song,

refuses the dark.

They tried to silence her.

She sings louder.

And the chamomile,

we crushed it underfoot,

scenting the air with comfort.

Now I walk where silence grows,

and all I smell is ash.

I think of flowers now

the way I think of names:

brief, fragile, blooming

even when the soil is broken.

And death, 

a garden we were never meant to walk in.

Not this young.

Not like this.

-Aspen Greenwood