there is nothing on a night snowing
so beautiful as a discarded rose,
perhaps red, or perhaps pink,
or purpose faded into age
and wondering who the recipient was
or supposed to be. Was it an angry
lover who discarded it?
Was it blown away, from another
bouquet while its owner walked
it home to its beloved, at home tending
to a child, small and becoming
and whose eyes are like both
parents, oak brown and inquisitive
like the first glance at the rose
because there is nothing as beautiful
or sad as a rose lost in snow,
early night on a planet
lonely in the galaxy and whose
inhabitants both give everything
for love and also capable
of letting it slip between their fingers,
so easily those petals
they fall.