flowers are few

Much that charms is small and fleeting
To the greatness of eternity.
The earth is a tiny shadow tottering on the edge of death;
The moon is a throb of splendor in the heart of the night;
And the stars are ephemera in the long gaze of God.
So grieve not
That your poems are the cool, fresh grass of a short summer;
The flowers are few.

—Pascal D’Angelo, last eight lines of “To Some Modern Poets,” Of Clouds and Mists: The Collected Poems (Sublunary Editions, 2024), with an introduction and Notes by Dennis Barone