Flowers For The Departed by Alan Paton

[fairlyobscure]

Flowers for the Departed
by Alan Paton

Allison Krause, for you tbis flower
Deserl-born in a distant land
Suddenly, in rain miraculous
Flamed into life and lit with orange fire
The arid plain.
So may your seed,
Returned untimely to the earth
bring back your beauty
to your desert land.

Sandy Lee Scheuer for you this flower
Shining and vivid like your life
Which fleeing as it were a shadow
Continued in so short a stay
May your shiningness return
To your dark land.

Jeffrey Miller, for you this flower
A golden eye amidst a field of tares
Yet by the blind machine cut down
We mourn for you,
and yet shall mourn
With ever-returning Spring.

William Schroeder, for you this last
From this far country.
Out of this sadness, joy
Out of this darkness, light
Out of your dying, life.

America, for you these flowers
Would we could reach out hands to comfort you
But we dare not
We dare not touch those fingers
dripping
With children's blood.

So hard to find this poem in a search. The version I found had a HUGE amount of errors, which I fixed, best as memory allowed.
It appeared in the U S Congressional Record, read into by some pol., but that doesn't come up on the search.