October is the month of the cosmos flower. I would like to share my ode to the cosmos.
Wake up,
whispered the sun
to the delicate flower
the ones known to man.
Its velvety petals
softly unfurl.
It bids farewell to the night
and the cold,
to welcome the light,
the warmth, and hope
for a new beginning
as it unfolds.
The morning dew
vanishes from the moist florets
where it once nestled in the dark.
Like a forbidden lover, it disappears
and joins the clouds and the lark.
The wind passes by
with its songs and strength.
It lulls and sways
the flimsy scape,
the peduncle and the pedicel.
They rattle and shake—
the leaves rustle.
What a dance it makes!
The butterfly sips and stays,
basking its wings,
getting ready for a long flight
before the winter stings.
The bees arrive too,
and on its florets they dive and roll.
They wrap their bodies
in luxurious pollen fur,
while their proboscises dip into its sweet galore.
The parasitic wasp stops by
cunning, haunting, waiting
for an oblivious symbiont—
the embodiment of Charles Darwin’s
theory of coevolution,
in which the caterpillar hosts its parasite
and suffers in the end.
As the night falls,
the flower closes, and the moon asks,
“Did you droop because you’re sad?”
The cosmos replies,
“Oh no!
I am grateful to both night and day.
Though I flourish when the sun is up,
it’s in darkness I regain my strength.”
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