Bright, upright,
They are
Like flowers in a jar.
Nuzzled by eland at a zoo,
Across a fence (“I’m holding you!”),
The one child cringes, laughs.
The other
Dreamily leans against the mother.
The father watches.

Vessels break,
Rolled through a raucous traffic.
Warm nights wake
To sirens. We forget.
The flowers blacken;
The water yellows, stems turn into bracken.

No thing is God—God lives, though, in delay,
In what this is, today and yesterday.