Pete Crowther - Forget Me Not

We will each take a picture of ‘Time’,
here is mine —
four fossils, a wristwatch, and flowers
so go back
two hundred million years,
imagine a warm shallow sea
where the ammonites lazily swim
near the surface enjoying the sun
while below on the dark sea bed
the other two cosily snuggle
with their kind
in a blanket of soft warm mud.

The flowers are forget-me-nots,
they speak of love.
They grow where it’s damp
by the banks of becks and streams.
Do you know how they came by their name?
Once a girl to test out her lover
pointed her hand to a clump
on the bluff of a bank of a swift moving river,
“Get me those”, she said with a frown,
straightaway down the steep bank he scrambled,
caught his foot in a root, tumbled down,
was swept away by the torrent
soon to drown.
Faintly she heard his last words
carry over the water so sadly
“Oh my love, oh my love,
forget me not.”

Like little blue stars shining brightly
the flowers only last for three days
then fade and die.
True love, though, is like the ammonite
it shines bright still even after
two hundred million years
and laughs at Time!

Pete Crowther

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/forget-me-not-17/