getting the white just right
will drive you mad
but it’s worth it 

to see them nodding at you
in a gentle breeze
nature steadily restored

now that we’ve realised it isn’t
about us actually 

– and that shade of yellow in the centre
richer than the sun
or an egg yolk

offset by the pale petals
you’ve so painstakingly worked on
for what feels like forever

will reward you like freshly churned butter
melting into crumpets 

– and techno-bees will buzz busily
as they delightedly detect
nectar 

and pollinate
the wide world wildly
creating anew

mornings dewy jewelled
and rainbow-refracted
for me and you.

[A J Dalton (www.ajdalton.eu) is a UK-based writer. He’s published the Empire of the Saviours trilogy with Gollancz Orion, The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy with Luna Press, the Dark Woods Rising and Green Man Ascendant poetry collections with Starship Sloane, and other bits and bobs. He lives with his monstrously oppressive cat named Cleopatra.]