(Click on photo to enlarge)

O, passionflower,
growing in Mary’s Garden—
your lavender flowers prophetic in unction:

Their tendrils are showing forth
Christ’s scourging, the three top stigma the nails,
the five lower anthers the wounds, the radial
filaments the crown of thorns,
placed on the head of the “King of the Jews.”

O, teach us, teach us, little reminder—

for red stains are His blood, shed,
the style to mock, to offer Him vinegar:
Your fragrance all spices that anoint,
and like the dogwood, your taller neighbor,
with each flower Calvary’s cross, your
blossoms focus on the sadness:

For, while we gladly walk in the garden,
the joy of heaven is yet to come.

first published in Flutter Poetry Journal