Today I bring you cold chrysanthemums,
white as absence, long-stemmed as my grief.
I stand before your grave, a few unfallen
leaves overhead, the sucking mud beneath.
What survives best are chrysanthemums
in a month which arrives austere as grief.
The hearty blossoms persevere, unfallen.
Suffering even snow, they flourish beneath.
You walked in mornings among chrysanthemums,
and bowed to them as if to hear their grief.
Your sleeves grew damp from brushing unfallen
dew. A drop lay by your eye, and one beneath.
Truest to your nature were chrysanthemums,
brilliant while first snows descended like grief.
You watched them from your bed, your heart unfallen,
steadfast through winter, and then you slipped beneath.
What is it they told you, once, the chrysanthemums?
It made you sigh, Ah, Grief!
Who savors you more than us, the unfallen,
long after we’ve forgotten the fallen beneath?