So why does this dead carnation hold particular charm? Ten days ago it was fresh, a bright, vibrant red, but now has lost its gleam, and the fold of its petals has loosened. It's like a flower in a painting, or an ordinary imitation in paper or cloth. One would have said it is useless, yet I feel a kind of power. Were they right, the Egyptians, to mummify cadavers? I've pinned the carnation upside down to my bulletin board the way Kazuko used to pin roses, to let it dry completely, I'm not sure why. But I know my frightened mind can cower to see my brown-spotted had moving toward uselessness, though it still has a kind of power. From moment to moment the world becomes memory, a still life, what the French Call @3nature morte@1. No embalmer could make my hand lifelike for an hour after its gone. But I'll keep the dry carnation anyway, the best I can do to abstract our existence and wrench from the useless past a kind of present power. 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...IN LOVE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE RAINY SEASON by CLARENCE MAJOR NOTHING WILL CURE THE SICK LION BUT TO EAT AN APE' by MARIANNE MOORE GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: OVER THE MACKINAC by KAREN SWENSON GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA by KAREN SWENSON |