These Globe Lilies
December 27, 1994
At night these globe lilies,
so delicate, so easily bruised,
grown up in the wild
without care or tending,
drooping their round flower heads,
unprotected but prospering,
having had neither greenhouse
nor spray nor fertilizer,
had they some kind of eyes
(which they do not)
would know that nothing
of solid substance
stands between them
and the cold of space,
those far, winking stars.