Stone-crafted Cyphers of Fact
The earliest of flowers of course were doomed
As flowers have always been and always will
Be, destined for their petal deaths, each groomed
By drought, or flood, or mold. They wait until
A fire comes by and kills them, butterflies
As well. If fires are wild enough they burn
The stems but then the flames might move sidewise
So quickly that the blooms are left to yearn.
They yearn one hundred million years once time
Has fossilized them. Scientists then come
And find them—then these blooms sing out sublime
Old oracles, refusing to succumb.
They held the secrets of lost pasts inside
Their stone-trapped forms for eons since they died.
~ Phillip Whidden