They were the beautiful flowers
in the celluloid Hollywood fields.
Actresses I saw in so many movies
and all the time on television screens.

It seemed they’d be eternally beautiful
and young and lovely forever.
Now some of them are dead.
Now all of them are old.

And the beautiful flowers
in the celluloid Hollywood fields
have wilted into nondescript
elderly women whose looks
have faded away so much
you would never know how
amazingly beautiful they were
when they bloomed in the movies
and on the television screens.

Though the demise of their beauty
is just the natural effects of aging
and all flowers eventually fade,
it saddens me just the same.

Bob Boyd