Schopenhauer's Flowers

We have before us only the one,

unchangeable Idea of the plant - Schopenhauer

Not the growing stem or the leaf blowing

in the wind; not the opening bud

or the emerging radicle; not the fourfold root

yearning for water, but the flower’s

eternal concept, its pure form.

Not the jetfire daffodil on the windowsill

or the polyantha in the rosarium,

but Flower as Platonic Idea abstracted

from temporal and spatial relations

like ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘before’, ‘after’.

Certainly not Schopenhauer’s restless Wille,

which does not weary in its drive

to show itself in multitudinous forms,

its sugary sap striving amidst the phenomena

of wind, heat, deluge, frost.

II

If beauty is unity of form without decay

then look not to Nature but to Art

like Piet Mondrian’s Amaryllis,

Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Iris.

Pure artefacts never become other

than themselves. Their scent

is the air of a well-ventilated room

in fragrant galleries and museums.

We queue to look; we stand, we wait.

If permitted to touch, glass meets

our fingers. Knowing subjects,

we meditate on inert forms.

Such paintings are still life

but life redeemed from nature’s spoils.