a writing exercise from this past summer

This past summer, when all the gardens were gorgeous, a writer friend and I issued each other a poetry challenge. We were to try to write a poem, any style, comparing our friends to flowers, and to do it within twenty minutes. We both produced poems, but she felt that hers fell below her standards and decided not to add it to her computer files. (We were writing in longhand at the time.)

My poem fell below my standards, too, but since so many of mine do, what's one more? Here is the poem:

How like a flower garden are my friends.
The poppies and sunflowers stretch so tall.
Impatiens loves the shade. So much depends
upon their natures. I enjoy them all.

A pale wallflower, and a belle, so blue
should dally with the spikes of lavender,
or black-eyed Susan with her gaze so true
will make eye-contact, bending them to her.

Nasturtiums nourish, other blooms surprise,
like purple asters with their orange smell.
Forget-me-nots rate highly in my eyes,
though dazzled by the scarlet pimpernel.

Most flowers bloom and fade; it's what they do.
The pearly everlasting one is you.