Ode to Fall’s Final Hibiscus Bloom
The very definition of full-blown,
over-the-top, out-of-line, you are
The Holy Grail of pleasure and delight.
No wallflower, you sound the cymbal
of joy in the face of November’s scythe.
More red than blood-red, you flame
in open defiance of the coming freeze
to blaze, to sleep, lie dormant, then
emerge triumphant—death’s affront.
More than a last hurrah, you are the last word
in the rare marriage of delicate and robust.
Antidote to my every sad, despondent thought,
magician’s wand of childhood wonder, you burn
without ash or smoke. Exuberant, unstifled,
unhampered one—unlikely hope of empty cupboard,
cold firebox, and broken body—how is it
you never stall, fidget, or pause to ask
should I, what if, is it too much?
Some will shrink from you with cries of Gaudy!
Indulgent! Indecent! as you dance the rhythm—
color-swirl-stomp—of flamenco. Always all-in,
no solo voice, you are a chorus. Ascetics
beware. Torturers, tyrants flee. Hibiscus bloom—
bright fire of life, final sup of honeybee—
you give freely. I take you in, awed and humbled
and ashamed to shudder at the coming cold.
Your Eminence, rage, rage against the snow.
MARY JO FIRTH GILLETT’s Soluble Fish won the Crab Orchard First Book Contest (Southern Illinois University Press). Read more.