Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CEREUS BLOOMS by RUBY BOWEN

First Line: REFUGED IN PURPLE SHADOWS
Last Line: A DESERT CEREUS BLOOMS.
Subject(s): CACTUS;
Refuged in purple shadows
Of desert mountains
In midnight darkness
On the desert
A Cereus blooms.

Waxen petals, virgin petals lifted
To pale desert starlight
In the silence,
A slow-measured silence...
A Cereus blooms.

All is still
As in death... quiet
Only a perfume,
A perfume seeping through darkness,
A hidden perfume
Haunting is, telling us
A Cereus has bloomed.

Putting on white robes
In unison; mysteriously,
In the quiet, hidden sanctity
Of desert altars;
Like virginal girls, veiled;
Veiled nuns taking final vows
In white robes,
Vows of purity, chastity, constancy...
A desert Cereus blooms.



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