Clipping Hydrangeas in Autumn
When their clusters had risen white
and their edges flushed pink,
the hydrangeas hung like moons
in their leaves of yellow sky.
So I got out my ladder and climbed.
I climbed a tree of moons;
I clipped them free of time;
I brought the moons inside.
I placed them in a vase.
Their colors didn’t fade.
They stayed white moons till Spring.
While the ones left on the tree
turned the beige of human skin,
and the clusters of hydrangeas,
closed like human eyes,
a tree of sleeping eyes.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn teaches at The 92nd Street Y and is Associate Editor at-large for Plume Poetry. Read more.
“Clipping Hydrangeas in Autumn” first appeared in Talking Underwater (2007, Wind Publications).