Poem for a Melancholy Day

YOUNG MAN PICKING FLOWERS

All at once he is no longer
young with his handful of flowers
in the bright morning of their fragrance
rising from them as though they were
still on the stalk where they opened
only this morning to the light
in which somewhere unseen the thrush
goes on singing in perfect song
into the day of the flowers
and while he stands there holding them
the cool dew runs from them onto
his hand at this hour of their lives
it it the hand of the young man
who found them only this morning

-- W.S. Merwin