Freshen the Flowers, She Said

 

So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain 

   was tender,

and took out the tattered and cut each stem 

   on a slant,

trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all--

   roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,

and more whose names I don't know, in bright new water--

   gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take

   their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,

the little sheds of the buds.  It took, to do this,

   perhaps fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes of music

   with nothing playing.

--Mary Oliver

[Garden flowers in my kitchen sink]