Its dark green shape of the spade on playing-cards,

Big as a dollar bill, showed a yellowy splotch first,

Irregular as illness. It worsened, and the others

Went on being hardy green, wholly themselves,

Except a rolled-up one, loosening silent and slow.

The design is in green, said the considering mind,

The sick one spoils the neighborhood stalk and stem.

Either to watch it, or snip it off, is a cruelty,

But either way hears or hurries some probable rhythm.

Then said, love too is slow and love is silent.

Let tomorrow be the last day, grief, failure, love,

No more, no more. No caring in it or caring for it.

But that was the day it turned itself all to gold,

Next day even and full-bodied golden, beautiful more

The third day than any other, and would live forever.

There was no way it could die now, being this way.

It broke at the base of the stem, in a silence.

It hung straight down, old frail hand limp in the wrist.

It dried in an hour, drained in air, scrawl, nothing.

The new one was wider than the rest, and greener.