Karma

Emily - your inimitable extended metaphor stuff :>
Anstey...I think you could read the first of those as:
"they will not last the torrid weather here (for) a moment..."
the second as
"will cry (as/in the form of) silver tears..."
Did you ever blow across the tops of milk bottles Em? That the sound I hear here (here, here).
A message for me, the analogous contrast between cut & dried/live wild flowers...