A Reading for a Botanist

Rejoice! Dance! Sing! in our Garden of Faery Delights

and embrace the life you have blessed us with.

You picked up your five swords,

but now you raise your three cups

under your most glorious Sun.

After all, like our shared namesake,

you are perennial - you will never die.

Each time winter solstice cuts you down,

you rise from beneath the Earth like

Persephone welcoming the vernal equinox.

Your radiant love germinates,

healing us all as Achilleus intended.

But remedy is not your destiny, for there is

no destiny. Your beauty is not conditioned

on your usefulness, but inevitable

because you exist, our galloping greenhouse,

our spellbound somnambulist.

No other gift would you owe us

because no other prize could be greater.