One day, one bloom

I've been contemplating this cactus flower for more than a week now. I'm not 100% what kind of cactus it belongs to, though I saw it up close, a large, narrow, spiny variety, sitting on the porch of our Joshua Tree vacation rental last week. The flower was a bud when we arrived, and over three days we saw it ripen, and by the morning of the New Moon, it had burst into flower (I found out that moths and bats pollinate night blooming cactus as insects and birds take care of the day bloomers). I took a picture of course — it was too beautiful — and I would quickly learn, acutely impermanent: Cactus flowers only last one day.
Be evening it had closed up onto itself, spent. 
 All that focus and energy for one glorious performance. HmmmMmmm.