White Chrysanthemums

A few more prose-poems are poking their heads out. "White Chrysanthemums" came quickly the other day, a rewriting of a poem from twenty years ago. Only the last line remains from the original poem.

I'm thinking of calling the new sequence I Didn't Come Here to Meet You, which I feel reflects some of the Zen and Sufi influences in the poems. Let me know what you think of the title.

WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUMS

I didn’t come here to meet you, but here you are,
and the world is better for it. I don’t know if we’re
male or female, black or white. These are questions
the cricket never ponders.

For now the snow and ice are on the garden, so the
blossoms will have to wait. I remember the black
dahlias nodding their heads in the wind. And the
white chrysanthemums, each bloom as radiant as a
human face in love.

(Copyright 2007, Allan Cooper)