Two Poems

by Michael Shindler (April 2020)

Abstraction White Rose, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1927

Wonder the Dead

Wonder the dead, wonder the wise,
A life of dread in dead men’s eyes:

They came each in a living guise,
Each face the face that was his own,
While he had sat upon his throne,
While servants sang him seven cries.

They pointed at what they had sown,
A flower all-strange, full of sighs,
And said, ‘Know this that never dies,’
And its petals were white as bone.

This is the price and that the prize,
This the soil in which it had grown,
This the wind in which it had blown,
All for nectar that never dries.

This I saw in a seeing stone;
I saw it but once, all alone.
 

Black Place I, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1945

While the Wilds

While the wilds of the world whirl by,

Fairies sing the hours into song,
Each seeming a history long,
And history itself a sigh,
Yet the songbirds singing still fly.

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Michael Shindler is a writer living in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in publications including The American Conservative, The American Spectator, National Review Online, New English Review, University Bookman, and Providence. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelShindler.

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