A bunch of lupines, bending in the sun

Holding their sides and laughing just for fun

Too hysterical from giggling at Life and Lunacy

To stop and share their little joke with me.

A crowd of lupines, gathered in a field

Gossiping in knots of purple, pink and green

Smiling at the clouds, chatting on their knees

Unmindful of the weather and the sudden chilling breeze.

A scourge of lupines, ravishing a hillside

In every grotesque posture and every groom a bride

I picked a heady armful, as they lay cavorting there

A tiny little armful, wouldn’t leave the hillside bare.

Clutching summer madness in purple, lilac, green

I put them in a crystal vase, therein to primp and preen

I let them stand just as they pleased in postures wild and rare

Some stood upright, some flopped around, just pretty anywhere.

A vase full of lupines, standing in the hall

A Nova Scotian summer, that did me enthral

Within a few short hours, they all did wilt away

Just like a Nova Scotian summer, they couldn’t last all day.