Does the dahlia dare ask why

disks of its flower bloom so wide,

darkening the ground with a shadow

bigger than desirable, a shadow damask-patterned,

lion-headed, and petal crowned,

a strong-stalked wonder,

when the crowded ground of this garden

could scarcely allow

another violet? 

Nor do I any longer doubt or debate my design

as a lion-headed dahlia of a man

impractically positioned at the base

of the eroding cliffside of my time. 

Couldn’t a score of sprouts better suited

to survive the coming landslide

have thrived instead? 

Countless seedlings spring up in my shadow.

The pale petals of my days filter

the scorching white god of the sun

into a milky white light,

nourishing the budding tomorrows.

When the loom spinning sisters of my fate

loosen the sandbags holding back the hillside behind

and my stalk is snapped in the landslide’s tumbledown,

besides the shoots my shadow has nourished, 

I will leave a tuber, my child,

whose heart will radiate

from beneath fathoms of silt and clay,

sending rhizomes silently skyward

to break like lightning from the earth,

it’s blooming color flaring as loud

as thunder, roar, and word.