The industry of flowers Is dying young. My friend Ray, I'm afraid, is gone. His crook was a shovel, His flock was water. Winter his flock was snow, So Ray built snowfences along the ditches And shoveled in spring To make them run. Ray was a water engineer, Which means He filled the reservoir For the ranchers On the prairie. Upwind, downstream, Almost just in time, Ray just wanted to help someone By building a bridge Across a ditch Or clearing a neighbor's winter road. (He even gathered mountain phlox, Which looks like melting snow, For a certain widow's windowbox.) It's hard to be happy In such a dry country. Ray filled the reservoir For the ranches on the prairie, Where otherwise only weeds would grow. Up the mountain, early spring, He shouldered his shovel Like a single, useless wing. Under the grass was the last thing he wanted, Which means he wanted it at last. All the ditches filled with snow, The headgates froze. Moth wings drifted On windowsills, And the ants came along in single file. Each one shouldered a wing And climbed the window into the sky, As if to show us humility, The science of living on. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SEA UNICORNS AND LAND UNICORNS by MARIANNE MOORE IN AN ARTIST'S STUDIO by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI ROCOCO by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE MESSIAH by MABEL WARREN ARNOLD ODE ON LORD HAY'S BIRTHDAY by JAMES BEATTIE EPITAPH ON THE TOMBSTONE OF A CHILD, LAST OF SEVEN THAT DIED BEFORE by APHRA BEHN |