Inscribed on Emanuel Sweert's painting 'Florilegium': Man's life is a flower.

Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; 
like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
Book of Job 14:2

 

While I watched, her blossom

faded from the field

left no shadow

 

Now all life expects in this eleventh hour

we should revere lost heroes with a flower

 

But I shall not add my poppy to a grassy mound

nor as others some mason's cross surround

 

Only my shadow

in this life's meadow

can mark the memory of her blossom

 

11th November 2019