Fading Flower Of Fidelity Poem by gershon hepner

The fading flower of fidelity
must be watered, like a melancholy ode
Keats might have read while offering Shelley tea,
to prove to him his inspiration always flowed.
O blithe the spirit! If it were a bird
it surely would be seen to soar, but must remain
upon the ground if it is to be heard,
engaged with flowers it does not treat with disdain.

Inspired by a poem called “Iceland” by W. H. Auden to which Linda and I listened on a CD while returning from Irvine where we had celebrated Absalom’s 38th birthday. Linda does not like the rhyme in the third line, causing me a minor attack of melancholy, but nothing that writing the poem down could not cure.

7/6/08