A milk bottle film coats the sky, <br />the humpbacked hills bristle evergreen, <br />tricorns white as arctic snow unfurl <br />their brazen petticoats, stiff and starched. <br /> <br />They signal the end of dark long days, <br />of kisses and missiles of sleet <br />that pierced the curled bud’s slumber <br />in slow degrees. <br /> <br />I am told they are beautiful, but I see <br />no beauty in them; even the fattened <br />bees cannot manage to sip <br />their bitter nectars. <br /> <br />There are so many of them speckling <br />the weathered path that cuts <br />a crooked curve through <br />the chilled black loam. <br /> <br />At dusk they fold their bloodless mouths <br />over little pea green hearts; <br />though anaemic and sickly <br />they can withstand the brittle frost. <br /> <br />The sky turns to rancid cream, darkens; <br />bats who believe they are stars <br />mark the air with their curses. <br />The wind flexes its muscle <br /> <br />one last time before it dies; <br />its grave is a mattress <br />of downy moss, dank and shallow <br />where the cold things crawl.<br /><br />Caroline Misner<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/trilliums-in-may/
