SHELBY LANARO
★ ★ ★ ★
POETRY
Image by Gerrie van der Walt
Funeral for Flowers
The flowers on my windowsills
are dying, but I don’t have
the energy to deal with them.
I don’t want to have to be
the Chrysanthemum coroner—
determine death due to
dehydration
by my own hand.
I don’t want to have to drive
my trash can
like a hearse to collect
the fragile florets,
clean up what’s left behind.
Anyway, the trash can
is undignified disposal. I like to
take my dead flowers
outside, release them
from their vessels, grant them
the ability to deteriorate
with dignity into the earth
dirt to dirt,
dust to dust.
Death happens whether or not
we have the energy to dispose of
its decomposing beauty,
and life keeps on living
whether or not
we have the energy
to cultivate it.
Shelby Lynn Lanaro is a poet, a lover of photography, and an avid home chef, who firmly believes that cooking is poetry. She is the author of Yellowing Photographs (Kelsay Books) and an award-winning professor at Southern Connecticut State University. Shelby’s photos have been published in Young Ravens Literary Review and Last Leaves Literary Magazine. Her poems have most recently appeared in Thimble Literary Magazine, Last Leaves Literary Magazine, New Feathers Anthology, and Southern Quill. Follow Shelby on Instagram @shelbylynnlanaro or at www.shelbylynnlanaro.com to keep up with her work.
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