This is the latest of my poems which I plan to read this Wednesday.

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.