Enlightenment

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

The bud of peony is just a bud,

Since small, though fat.  It isn’t quite the thing.

There’s nothing in it making hearts go, “THUD!”

It does not give a glint of realms of wing

Of angel or archangel, seraphim

And Gabriel before the Virgin, Queen

Of Heaven.  Buds like it might only seem

To prophets as a floral, gorgeous scene

To come.  The tightness of the bud is more

The tightness of a bride desiring groom

Before deflowering, or like a whore

All gaudied, made up as a sweating bloom.

  And then the bud bursts, BEAUTY!, aura bright

    As haloes, rainbows bringing star-like light.

November10, 2026; rewritten November 11, 2026