12 Dec Marigold

Marigold

by A. F. Moritz

The shining of gold, dark
and blinding bright by turns,
the sun falling from blue clouds
into the ocean and noon and dawn,
all unfolded and held up,
carried, offered on motionless
petals, fingers, rays, unchanged
through all the day’s seasons
and the night under spectral
low-watted garden bulbs.

Unchanged, marigold, except you always
are born, flower, last, and decay,
and mummified, brown and stiff, stand
in the snowy mud, shedding seeds.

Mary’s gold, your flower primal
gold above and red gold underneath,
streaked with rust and blood,
earth ochre, stain of red clay,
knife wound, spike and spear thrust,
wrists tightly bound, thorns,
menses, a dripping scalpel line:
the seven sorrows, seven darts
that sum up all cuts
lopping the human parts away
perpetually: the darts that are your seeds,
that grow in, pierce, harrow,
fall from, and are, your heart.