Nightfall In The Rose-Garden Poem by Roy William Gotaas

Ashes to ashes,
Meal to roots of roses:
One-way street in petals falling,
Dust to dust.

The lowering sun sucks
From blown blossoms,
Their colours that go
At last to dust.

Death is in the seed
Bud, root and leaf
Which have no choice
But dust.

From death to death,
The cycle onward blindly
Rolls its endless way
From dust to death.

I, in the falling dusk
Go slowly blind to all.
And shall too, eventually,
Be dust.