Endeavor

Endeavor

I never met an azalea I didn't like—
one could talk forever
about propositions of impossibility
as time hollows out one loss, two, then the many but
just give time the time it needs
for the consummations of butterflies
(likewise, never met a butterfly I didn't like)
that were never anything but likeable,
panoramic, photogenic, a soft dynamic
dynamo of innocence each one always in labor
giving birth to another palette of shifting air
not too many, just enough to confound
any thoughts of tracking and just so one more
set of petals from one or another azalea gets the impetus
for the drop. All those hollows for them to fill
with one nearly weightless hue after another
there is no stopping these hollows
and btw azaleas, as much as I like you
don't even think about slowing down the wings
of even one butterfly taken on as they have such
thankless labor, to beat without sleep
taking turns politely, to beat out the hands of time.