Thou fair wintergreen leaf,
laced in pure soft snowflakes,
perfectly symmetrical,
infinitely seraphic, how dost thou
fill thine cup of silence?
The ecstasy of putrescence
lapps not at thine heart,
as she does other mortal
sprigs of mint and thyme.

I can always bid thee adieu,
and press on apart,
forgetting thine countenance
of softness blending into jagged
peaks of undisheartened,
though the snow presses against
you, burrowing your softness
in sweeter ambrosia,
to be forgotten and walked by,
left to suck the marrow of life
through a broken stem,
unable to taste your own
potent delicacy.

But I could notice, of course,
take heed of thee,
thou sacred fire of thineself,
burning on the altar of time
lost forever,
never to be brought back
and savored like
the red stripes clashing
into the white of the lamb
yet mixed
together, not a black ram
nor a white ewe,
but a Roliet,
so apart,
so distant,
so fused,
explosively mixed in the fate
of reality, into an eternal ballet
of swirling color meeting and feeling,
dying in each other’s arms as they
meet the tongue of mortality.

Then you would be noticed, I guess,
your bittersweet taste appreciated
for what it is, a shrinking violet sinking
into the abyss of white
with a tinge of forest yearning to
grow, expand, fill the vacuum,
seize the day, and gather your own
rose petals of red and white while
ye may, thou soft shard of
wintergreen.

But never will thou realize
that thine complexion,
fair as the curves of a mahogany
coffee table outlined into a chess board,
wilt ne’er see the light of day,
for thine spark of green flame
shall be o’erpowered by the sinking sun,
till it shadows both the purity of oppressive
snow and thine evermore perfect visage

alas! miserable wintergreen,
for though the world set out to
see you to the netherworld of unrequited
love shunned by all save death,
thou shalt die forgotten,
incomplete,
lacking all sense

lacking all existence

devoid of meaning.