It was a cool, spring evening after the rains when I first saw you in Union Square. You were leaning heavily against the brick wall of the Barnes & Noble. Nothing housed in that cathedral of words could have matched the poetry of your slant, the pathos of your solitude. You had been left–but why? When I unfurled you like an early rose, you were strong. Under your bright, geometric blues and whites, the gray sky became again the vault of heaven. I took you home that day. The damp spring has limped towards a soggy summer. You fought many a good fight these long months. Today, you wrestled again with winds of fate, and today, you lost. We walked home together, the delicate parts of you unraveling with each gust. When we passed your ravaged brethren in the street, we did not look.

Tomorrow, you will wake to a light drizzle. You will be twirled a time or two for pure pleasure. The sun will peek through the wispy clouds. You and all who have gone before you will seem a great, bobbing sea of abounding blooms, in all imaginable colors.