Stop Button

I’d like to freeze-frame

snap, click,

the perfect moments

of nature—when the

neon-yellow tulips are at

their smartest bent, when

the scarlet-red cardinal with

orange beak lands on the black

wire of the seed-holder, when

the blushing robin scrumps

up a wiggling worm—but nature

is never still.

It keeps

on moving and changing. Past

perfection—past lime lacy leaves,

pearlized blossoms and

rich red roses—past

deterioration

right on to

degradation. There is no

stop button. No way of

holding back the eventual

disintegration that always

follows life’s finest

hours.