Poem – Flower

You wonder why a nation’s dying
All you see are flags a flying
All you can hear are preachers crying
A house built on things that surely fade away

Don’t let this flower interrupt your world
Sweet lady of the south
There is a season

Teach the children to remember
Build the house with eternal timber
Please wake up before it’s over
Don’t let the old folks see it slip away

When all the stores were closed on Sunday
We had time to rest for one day and we had more to give, what a wonder
Didn’t need so many things to fill up the emptiness someone made, someone made

And now we sit and watch the hourglass
Surrounded by a veil we can’t pass
Drowning in a nation’s great past
A house built on things that surely fade away

Pillars of eternal standing
We’re replaced by this world’s planning

And like a drunken man who’s hit rock bottom
For some it’s the only way

But I know that this man can get up and live
And I know his heart and what he can give
Don’t miss the flower,
And teach the children to remember

Written by Gene Murphy on a beach in Waldport Oregon June 2010