A Poem

A White Flower Blooms in a Red Garden
(Beth Kephart)

When I die:
The bloomed-out pink of a peony nearest my head,
a deer at the edge of the gazebo,
a soprano bird in the near limb
of the river birch,
the river birch peeling.

It will be a day like today begun
with dahlias in the garden,
lisianthus in full crown,
something once said in my head,
sky settled on the tongue
of the bearded iris,

and what you call metaphor
will be just my way of saying God
while the breeze carries by on the smooth stone back
of a common turtle
in the final syllable
of the final hour.

This morning,
in a clump of flowers that has always ripened red,
a white stray with only a zest of that blood color
at its prayerful center.
The end of something.
The near beginning.