princely states

Who knows the rose

who never had a globe?

To keep out the bugs

that made the stems shrug

what is a dove

to an indoor plant?

who gardens its self

on the corner of a shelf

in a cool dim shadow

malnourished and alone

who waters the leaves

to answer its pleas?

The golden-haired boy

arrives on the scene

wearing his cape

and endlessly naive

thinking that he will know

just what to do

to revive this rose,

make it blush from blue

but he asks so many questions

and jumps from here to there

traveling the universe

while the rose is on Earth

learning came easy

to the little princely one,

of all things most exciting

even what was in writing

the further he explored,

the more gold dust he collected,

whimsical wizardry extravagantly sublime:

ideas, friends, and beautiful rhymes

but none of these things

were proof to his heart,

for he had foregone the hard toil

of replenishing the soil,

and the rose had near wilted

under the weight of existence

and no amount of persistence

will raise a rose from a distance