An uphill breeze ruffled
Scattered pink and white cups–
A patch of spring beauty in a bed of moss.
One brief waft of perfume and it was gone.
The scene: a local park.
I bent, picked a pinkie-tip flower,
Inhaled, drew deep for just one drop of scent.
The perfumed breeze had been a symphony,
A thousand notes
Conducted by the breeze.
Among the flowers, though, below an overhanging branch,
A tangle of gray and white feathers–
A coat not willingly laid aside but stripped
By something great and terrible.
It felt like stepping into a room the moment after
Some argument had ended.
Thus is the secret imparted:
Nature is perfume and a thousand tiny murders.
Inseparable, like life–like our lives–
Good and evil, wonder and horror, sorrow and joy.