a bounce upward

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Freshen the Flowers, She Said

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So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain

was tender,

and took out the tattered and cut each stem

on a slant,

trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all--

roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,

and more whose names I don't know, in bright new water--

gave them

-

a bounce upward at the end to let them take

their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,

the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,

perhaps fifteen minutes.

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Fifteen minutes of music

with nothing playing.

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(Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early: New Poems)

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