Dropping Roses

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal
down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
– Don Marquis

Actually it’s like a lot of other things
more than it’s like that.
I can think of at least six or seven.

Like throwing feathers
in front of an oscillating fan,
or putting a penny

between your back teeth
and holding it there all afternoon.

But what is utterly beyond me
is why the Don had rose petals
at the Grand Canyon in the first place.

Maybe you can purchase sachets
of dried rose at the Visitor Center.
That would be a nice touch

and rather unexpected
from the National Park Service.
Or maybe he spied a lone

petal on the floormat of his rental,
discarded after a night
of continental passion in the desert.

And that waiting for an echo business?
That is just the Don being silly, I think.
Because everybody knows

that when a poem enters an open space
it is designed to make a catastrophic,
almost incomprehensible sound.