Flower Child

The Flower Child by March Bracken

She buried her face in the field of black eyed susans,
Welcoming her without scorn.
She ran and buried her face,
Then delicately touched a baby periwinckle,
A sweet purple blue innocent.
She drank in the round rich
Luminous hydrangeas.

She heard a truck pull up
Crushing the pansies and tears rolled.
She heard the big ones laughing talking loudly
After a long lunch with many drinks in which she’d sat
Still as a mouse, eating nothing.
She felt the pansies’ death as her own,
Silenced with carelessness.

She bent over & touched a limp pansy
With one finger.
Then she picked one up, lying in the mud.
“What are you doing?” yelled her dad.
“Put that back,” screamed her mom.

Pale and fragile at four,
She fled gripping the flower
Tightly in her fist and ran,
Tears streaming down
Her pale pinched cheeks.
She ran as if her life depended on it.