A Paradox

I find myself wandering alone
trying to make sense of all I've seen
of life and death and love and hate
and everything in between.

I happen across a dazzling meadow.
Its beauty takes my breath away
and I am overcome with sadness
for I know I cannot stay.

I am a trespasser to its colour,
a pilpherer of its breeze.
I am permitted to stay only a while
and too soon I will have to leave.

I bend down and pick a single bloom
from the thousands growing wild.
Its simple beauty captivates me
and I wish that it were mine.

So I hold on to it tightly, and run;
its image filling my head.
I open my hand to see it again
but I found the flower dead.

So is it better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all?
Or fight for something that isn't mine
and risk the impending fall?

Now I wander, empty, from place to place
looking for beauty of equal measure.
For that single bloom has touched my life
and its memory I will treasure.