A TALE OF TWO SUNS

She turned always

to a sun of long ago—

a memory of something

perhaps that was never so

exactly what she insisted to recall—

and though

the sun of that memory shed

some overcast of color,

there emanated from the petals

a too-rich scent

an insidious hint

that deep into the roots,

invisible

there sullied and spread

the wasting,

a draining of life to death

He turned always

to her—she was his sun—

and though

he did not flower

as he might have done

in the fullness of real sunlight

his blossoms, lacking glow,

were pale but sturdy

and smiled

almost content to be shadowed so

From root-base of love, a bright

stream coursed upward for him

in a steady, life-giving flow