Tag: flowers

How to Transplant a Flower – or – How a Child is Like a Flower

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Know where you’re going.
Make sure there is a soft and comforting bed
with all the flower needs to thrive at hand.

Work quickly.
The limbo between old home and new home
is a dangerous place and flowers wilt easily.

Sever as few roots as possible.
Flowers need roots to grow, severing too many
will stunt them and make them terribly sad.

Avoid high winds and blazing sun.
Tender little roots will shrivel under the onslaught
of nature’s volatile moods. Choose a cool, soft day.

Transplant into a nourishing environment.
Soft soil to dig their wee toes in, rain puddles,
sunshine; these are the things a flower needs.

It’s maintenance from there on.
A flower depends upon you for protection from weeds,
and pests, and unkind hands that pluck pretty flowers.

Be prepared to train the flower in how it should grow
with a loving hand, prune away the bad stuff,
provide frameworks for them to climb upon.

That’s how you transplant a flower.

 

#161

Delphiniums

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Tall and stately they begin,
row upon row of buds,
cool green with only a blushing hint
of the colours yet to come.

Days grow longer and hotter.
Buds burst upwards in an orgy
of sun worshipping colour.
robin’s egg to midnight,
some with dainty white trim like
gingerbread on the eaves,
and one the colour of chocolate and milky coffee.

Drunk with warm, summer rain,
they gargle bees in their throats and
stagger beneath the weight of their own beauty.
They lean on each other and fall spillikins.
Too late I tie them to their canes

Dry now, their seasonal duty done,
seeds ripen into death rattles
and spill across the pale golden bones,
hollow and brittle.
I collect the remains, inter them
in the compost pile, and wait.
Next spring, when the delphiniums
are born again, I will lay the essence
of their predecessors at their feet.

 

#139

Perfect World

lindastudley4 Comments

My perfect world never gets colder than
wearing a light sweater will handle.
The sun is warm, not scorching, and it only rains at night.

My perfect world is very green with
generous dollops of flowers and fruit trees.
Cats and dogs don’t scratch or bite – just wag and purr.

My perfect world is home to people who smile
a lot and always have time to play scrabble.
Poets and musicians are admired and stay for free.

And I don’t know if my perfect world is Heaven or
a high end seniors’ home, but Canada’s
the closest to it that I’ve found so far.

 

#61

A Middle Road

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Clutter upsets me.
I internalize trip-overs and misplaced mathom
Into anthropomorphic indigestion.
 
Empty sterility irritates me.
My fingers itch to paint Georgia O’Keefe flowers
On hard white walls.
 
Possessions bother me.
I close my eyes and see them lined up
Whining for attention.
 
Poverty frightens me.
I see it lurking behind each uncertain decision
My hand to its mouth.

May I find a middle road with no shadows,
With just enough clutter to make it interesting,
With flowers on either side.

 

#15