the lilies

The Roy Chesney Poetry Contest 2024 2nd Place Winner

I have considered the lilies of the field. 

Etched a Lily of the Valley in dark ink 

upon the palest part of my wrist to remember. 

Tipped my hat good morning to regal Calla and brilliant Day 

bouquets fighting for space in my crowded beds. 

Winked at the freckled Tiger that reflected back 

my own Maker markings. 

Lilies, tall in splendor, now yellow, parched 

by August’s end. They are soon to be a sleeping beauty. 

In dormancy I’ll plunge a spade.

Divide and multiply. Prolific math. God’s economy. 

I’ve displayed them in a milk glass vase 

on tables splayed with the litter of life. 

I’ve adorned them in a wreck-of-a-room 

for their intoxicating perfume, though I swear 

I won’t squander them this way. But I do. Tossing my pearls 

before the swine of unfinished housework. 

If you only knew how hard I have considered…

Despised my toiling tendencies and withering ways. 

My fret and frantic and irritating fear.

And they just stand there. 

Held. 

My penchant for gilding.

My extravagant waste, in lavishing beauty upon more beauty. 

In heaping wonder upon the perfectly wonderful. 

In attempting to add to Divinity that requires none of my doing. 

I cannot improve upon such deliberate detail. 

I cannot provide more to perfect provision.

Could I climb the dusty pistil then slide down swollen petals?

Ride the glory until fuzzy with the pollen of perspective?

Feel my womb-bloom burst at the seams and curl fetal with side-splitting joy?

Inhale and slump drunk on the ancient wisdom in being… just because?

Because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Because my life is more than stems trimmed at an angle.

Because I’m display-worthy even if in a peeling pickle jar. Or atop a sticky counter.

Because the superfluous beauty of the lily is not wasted on me.