Do Not Go Gentle (Title From Dylan Thomas) Poem by Lois Read

The lone red
most ordinary tulip
in the front garden
has surprisingly mmorphed
into something new
something exotic

as though it shed its
workday clothes
and donned
a red satin cloak with
black velvet sleeves edged in gold
such as a sultan
or oriental potentate
would wear.

In these, its last days
it stands alone still on
single stem amid spring sprouts
not decorously dropping petals
one be one, but
proudly, with grand hauteur
dispensing alms
to lesser beings,
reciting Dylan Thomas.