Flicking through pages on my mobile phone
I study photos of the summer just gone -
Birthday flowers placed in a vase by the kitchen window
Appear serenely perfect, more so than the smile
On the face of my hand carved wooden Buddha
Siting impassive in a stream of sunlight
That drifts in silence from east to west.
The surreal perfection of the birthday flowers
Seem to defy the progress of time,
With their delicate beauty outdoing nature
As if they were cut from coloured glass.
But glass breaks easily, and time, like the sunlight
Drifts unstoppable from dawn to dusk
And outlasts the darkness that clouds our dreaming.
The flowers have gone, but the photos remain
To celebrate a birthday that passed last summer
When the days were long and warm and lovely
And the hands on the clock for a moment stopped moving.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter,
December 11th. 2024.
