Note to a Random Thing in My Yard

Dear Hydrangea,

in full bloom you were pink-tinged white,
your companions were too, fulfilling
with a chorus of blossoms the promise
of life bestowed upon a diminutive seed,
a dry little thing, ordinary as a pebble,
but which contained a code of creation
no stone could match,
not even one of the grandest Himalayas
could equal your gift to bloom,
to present yourself to eyes
as if you were a foregone conclusion,
to end here in my hand, snapped from the
tip of the thinnest limb, sapped of life
but not of beauty—rusty, dry, but comely,
fragile, delicate, true, spun of light

Jim Culleny, 4/14/22