Lilies Go Fast

Yesterday, I deadheaded 50 lilies
in the bed out back.
Today, there were 24.
And tomorrow,
maybe only 2...

Lilies go fast.
Each generation lasts only a day
before the next fills in.

Dad once bought a shiny new Nikon camera,
with every close-up attachment known to man.
Probably, to shoot mom's lilies.
The ones in my garden now.

But his eyes soon faded like day-end petals,
his legs withered like wilting stems.
And decades later,
I inherited a camera still shiny,
but unfulfilled.

And on the night we stopped life support,
his heartbeat slowed from 73...
through 50...
past 30...
and like the lilies, went fast when it crossed 24-
a seemingly special threshold
where the bloom is spent.

I've been told I dwell too much on the past.
But it is the present,
one tick gone.
And the past is where my meanings
come.

So for now, I'll dwell.
And as I plot my way,
I must remember that lilies go fast...
and with them,
the day.