in this garden every
leaf is
mortal
every petal
root and branch
grow towards
nothing
the path we
follow disappears
behind us
dreams unable to
survive the night
flowers
shed their meanings
the code that numbers the
colors of the flowers
will die
and numbers are mortal
. . . . . . . . . . .
I wish I could
tell you
this
Keith Waldrop is the author of Selected Poems (Omnidawn 2016), Transcendental Studies (U of California Press, National Book Award 2009), and more than a dozen other books of poems. He has also published a novel, Light While There Is Light (Dalkey Archive), a book of collages, Several Gravities (Siglio), and translated Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil and Poems in Prose as well as contemporary French authors Anne-Marie Albiach, Claude Royet-Journoud, Paol Keineg, Jean Grosjean etc. He is retired from teaching at Brown University and, with Rosmarie Waldrop, edits Burning Deck Press in Providence, RI.