Consider the Lilies

by Dee Wade

“Consider the lilies” our Savior said,
and whether he was thinking of Day Lilies or not,
we are, walking through Betty and Skip’s garden,
scaped with a waving sea of Hemerocallis
(you know: Greek Hemera, day, plus kallos, beautiful).
Considering how generously they grow color and shape
and how easily they release both to the fading sun,
we question such an expenditure of light and soil,
that each blossom open on this first July afternoon
will not see the second.

Our eyes inhale an unrepeatable sight
that intellect will never quite plumb,
hoping that we have ears to hear
this whisper between birth and death.
Our heart strains to hold dear the vision,
even as we grieve life’s fleet passage
from full radiance to faint memory.
Compressed time expands splendor.

“Consider the lilies” our Savior said,
their glorious array Solomon’s sartorial envy,
the botanical expression of unmerited favor,
freely gained and given, nature proclaiming:
You get one day, one day of heart-breaking beauty.
One spin under the sun you get, painfully lovely.
And maybe it’s your sweat, maybe those are tears
watering the garden of your labor,
but short or long, pure or weedy, gratitude applauds,
it is enough.

Enough is, of course, enough,
far beyond what we deserve,
as poisonous as we are with self, others, earth,
but the Lord of the Lilies proclaims grace:
you get all this and more.
You get a beautiful day and more.
Forever, more.