Cactus Flowers

CACTUS FLOWERS

From a bulbous, dark-green cactus,
spiked in squat solidity,
three large flowers, fine and sudden,
burst forth like festivity.

As beautiful as any
blossoms of this world,
with rings of peaked and fragile
petals, all unfurled,

that pass,
quite imperceptibly
from shining centre white
into a blush of light,
pale-glowing pink,

they vibrate in
the soft, south breeze
which brushes on the skin like silk.

They seem apart, hardly a part
of this stout citizen of desert heat,
ethereal and delicate,
unlike the hard and water-hoarding
body of the plant,

and yet

the seeming dull can bring
such shining to its birth;
to live the ideal needs
to spread its roots in earth.

In their harsh world the flowers last one day.
They grace the light, with night they pass away.