Stoic Garden

No tree says flowering is better
than bearing fruit, just lovers, who embrace
the faith we belong to homo sapiens,
that nostalgic species, the one which takes
the egotism of dying for its own,
longing for perfect flowers and fruit.
Like hummingbirds, themselves deciduous
leaves which perish if trapped in airlessness,
they flit from one lush shrub to another,
sucking at salvia and drooping fushia,
drones darting off to persist, if at all,
in retinal afterglow, green for red,
absence for the flutter of a wing,
a heartbeat for a spasm.