The flower head is set to burst wide open.

Dormant in this tired space,

Matured and rooted by the year,

It sways in gentle rhythm with this slowing autumn time.

 

Bulging now with future life, it stands

As testament to nature’s cycle.

Soon its seeds will spread afar,

Exploding silent and unseen, like time and time before.

 

And from the casting of those flyspeck seeds
A distant flash of red will rise.

Dew fresh petals spreading sunward,

Each one new to spring time air and early summer heat -

 

Yet each is linked through place and past,

Through birth within this damp enclave,

This fading haven, bordered low

By unkempt, moulting shrubbery and endless circled life.

 

And so it is that people also grow

From common roots, to stand apart,

To cast new life around the world

And procreate in pulsing waves through budding future selves.

 

But no new me will come to rise and bloom.

This lineage, this family tree

This name, this thread; these all will fade.

I nullify this ‘driving need’ - my future ends with me.