flowers fell

flowers fell

there can’t be many chances left.

like wildflowers in a meadow choked by roads
tangling and constricting old memories
grown calloused and unyielding.

once, in a different place, there
seemed a carpet of such endless flowers,
so bright and so new and so hopeful and so lasting,
lying sweetly back and counting stars
with no need for a future.

now, the roads have become much more determined,
gnawing into the edges of the meadow,
blooms imprisoned by specific concrete.
the ground stony and sore,
little now finds a way to grow in this diminishing place
dried and brittle within each pore.

so much venom has seeped into the loam,
myself and others using this meadow
for dumping waste; rusted and broken bits of hope
flustered in the sun like old tyres;
the meadow a place for skirmishes
and only the occasional armistice,
as all the while, flowers fell silently underfoot.

there comes a time,
when all is too late.
unrelenting roads from there and here and round again
swamp the surface, petals decaying
above ground, parched blooms
turned in on themselves in an attempt to leach nourishment,
scraped fragments of the meadow
showing through as scarred skin.
the dusty, unforgiving ground
where no seeds can begin.