Pick of the bunch
The ignorance that hurts the most;
comes from the knowledge lost;
through little questions left unasked;
of those so close you thought;
there’d always be a time;
to fill the widening gaps that gape;
as you live on, constructing life.
My childhood pennies sometimes went
on flowers for my mother, spent
in Eric Roberts’ shop on Shirley Road.
Just streets from home and very near the park.
It didn’t matter what I bought; she loved
them all and trimmed, cut, crushed, arranged,
until my little gift looked elegant, refined.
From all the flowers that I bought for her
just two stood out: the freesia and anemone –
although I sensed anemones were valued more.
The freesia is not difficult to like:
designer colours: pastel to a pleasing depth;
flute shape on a flamboyant stem;
a time-lapse growth from bud to bloom
in one expansive sweep; a heady scent
that soon pervades a room.
The more domestic flattened shape of the
anemone is crayon-scribble ripped from
page to posy-tied; no compromise in colour;
a ruff-green filigree surrounding stem
with dark and clumsy stamens out poppying
the flower that I will never wear.
There was a special vase for these; and
they were never mixed, but drank alone.
One flower fits the sense I have
of my late mother’s character.
The other is more difficult to gauge.
I can, who better, speculate –
but all the evidence, like all the
flowers, is long since gone.
