Vase of Daffodils

Bright enough to burn
Into a bleakly urban Tuesday morning -
Vase of yellow sunshine on my window sill.
Brewery sketched greyly behind
Is not redeemed, however.

Opened during the night,
Their faces now crane upwards
Towards Mother Sun
As she peers downwards
Through concrete fingers.

Charm and pathos mixed.
What price such effort
When beauty is already
Severed from purpose?

Theirs is a brief moment
Without perpetuity.
Now is given up
In favour of a posterity
Already gone.

Purposefully purposeless,
They earn a certain dignity
And in cauterising today's pain
Who is to say
That they lack meaning.

Copyright © 2011 J.S.Watts

From ‘Cats and Other Myths’ by J.S.Watts, published 2011 by Lapwing Publications (ISBN 978-1907276-64-4)
(‘Vase of Daffodils was first published in Carillon Magazine)