Flowers Before Dark

Stillness of flowers. Colours

a slow intense fire, faces

cool to the touch, burning.

Massed flowers in dusk, crimson, 

magenta, orange,

unflickering furnace, gaze

unswerving, innocent scarlet,

ardent white, afloat

on late light, serene passion

stiller than silence. 

Denise Levertov

It is spring, and the night wind

is moist with the smell of turned loam

and the early flowers;

the moon pours out its beauty

which you see as beauty finally,

warm and offering everything.

Margaret Antwood