What Do the Daisies Say on Graveyard Hills?

If only the wind would hush
and we could somehow press
our heads against the sod and hear
the language of flowers.

What do the daisies say
on lonely graveyard hills?
They stand in sentry rows
as though to guard the sleeping.

I cannot believe they are silent.
Their yellow petals wave;
they bend on green stems
like supplicants in need of grace.

What do they say in petal talk,
in velvet-smooth vowels,
in the alliterative rush of consonants
that rise and fall and rise again?

If only they could speak to us,
say sweetly how proud to stand
like guardians of the dead
or how they miss summer gardens.

If only this heart of mine,
this true self who speaks wordlessly,
could decipher the tongues of daisies
and I could suddenly grow wise.

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(C) 2011 Salvatore Buttaci