Flowering Death
Flowering Death - meaning Summary
Illusion, Loss, Small Consolations
The poem presents images of flowers and a fragile, manufactured comfort amid decay. It argues that collective blankness undermines beliefs in permanence, and that cherished ideas must be tricked into existence then deliberately dismantled. By scattering these illusions, modest pleasures—cake, wine, friendship—remain as small consolations backed by night and loss. The voice balances detached observation with a pragmatic acceptance that intimacy and simple joys endure despite erosion.
Read Complete AnalysesAhead, starting from the far north, it wanders. Its radish-strong gasoline fumes have probably been Locked into your sinuses while you were away. You will have to deliver it. The flowers exist on the edge of breath, loose, Having been laid there. One gives pause to the other, Or there will be a symmetry about their movements Through which each is also an individual. It is their collective blankness, however, That betrays the notion of a thing not to be destroyed. In this, how many facts we have fallen through And still the old façade glimmers there, A mirage, but permanent. We must first trick the idea Into being, then dismantle it, Scattering the pieces on the wind, So that the old joy, modest as cake, as wine and friendship, Will stay with us at the last, backed by the night Whose ruse gave it our final meaning.
from As We Know (1979)
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