Blue Iris Of Innocence
© Surazeus
2025 03 24

The delicate blue iris of innocence
blooms among bull thistles, crabgrass, purslane,
and horseweed in the fenced-in vacant lot
with humble beauty of the faceless girl
who arranges stones in circles of faith
to enclose dazed silence of afternoon.

Gold-breasted kingbird with quick darting eyes
reigns from her nest in the mulberry bush
with elegant grace of wind-hopping faith
to prove that compassionate grace of trust
heals broken-hearted people of the world
who struggle to escape dire circumstance.

Trapped in the bureaucratic maze of fear,
Maria Flores stares at cement wall
where ghostly faces of her children glow
though seven years of loneliness have passed
since agents arrested them on the bridge
when they were driving home from Mexico.

Released from detention one afternoon,
Maria Flores walks the quiet town
past the fenced-in vacant lot of her heart
where ghost of her daughter arranges stones
to protect blue iris of innocence,
then lies down under the mulberry bush.

Not knowing where to find her family,
Maria Flores walks to the old church
but the door is locked and the lights are out,
so she works as the night-shift janitor
at the hotel near the airport highway
and sleeps at night by the mulberry bush.

Attending church each Sunday afternoon,
Maria Flores prays for light of hope,
kneeling at statue of Mother and Child,
to find where her husband and children live,
then walks past city park where children play
while angels scream in pain too far away.

Twisted branches of trees gleam in the pool
that shimmers beside the large ice-smooth stone
where Maria Flores, numb from despair,
stares at calm beauty of the silver sky
that erases gaunt beauty of her face
and carves it on the stone of solitude.

Kneeling before tombstone behind the church
carved with name of her mother in gray letters,
Zuzia Flores weeps with pain of relief
after searching for more than twenty years,
then looks up at sharp song of the kingbird
who takes her heart and flies beyond the world.

surazeus.blogspot.com/2025/03/…

Orpheus photographs an old woman working as a janitor at the hotel, then photographs her walking in the city park where she sits on a bench and does not cry.

#Poetry #Poem #Pastoral #Necropastoral #MetaModernism #MetaRomanticism #NewSublimity #NewRomanticism #AmericanDream #Cinemism #Existentialism #Surrealism #NegativeCapability #NewGnosticism #MetaRealism #NewTranscendentalism #Astarism