What are the chrysanthemums saying?
The flowers extend like an open palm
as if reaching.
What is the artist saying?
Whose fingers does he want
to touch his hand?
I see love, tenderness,
as if the blossoms are children
arranged in a delicate pose.
As if the artist is asking,
are they not heaven and earth?
A family that filled
the walls of his life.
Or the totality of the palm’s gesture
to someone he would never
touch again.
A death?
A fading catastrophe?
Or a child lost,
disappeared into another life,
who he dreams of,
listening to his stories,
racing after balls,
or roughhoused tenderly,
as father and son.
Something provocative lingers
in the picture.
Sublimity and sadness.
Is the secret in the chrysanthemums
his resignation,
his determination
not to lose what was wonderful
to his life?
A man who looks to the space
left at the end,
and he offers
the last thing he has,
the remains of the beautiful
inside him.