One of the things about spring that I love is when all of the flowering trees burst into blossom. I can’t be grumpy about politics, work shite, and encroaching old age when the magnolia trees are holding forth. Plus, I love bulb flowers — daffodils, shiny tulips, iris, lilies. That kind of assertive and frivolous color just restores my sense of poetry.
In Praise of Spring Flowers
What juicy upthrust joy the daffodils speak,
bursting through the backyard lawn to shout
yellow. And how about those crocus with their
darling mauve and yellow mouths open to suck
cool April air? Next, the glossy tulips, shiny as
horse skin, waving gently in the neighbor's beds,
and the sassy snapdragons, petunias, pansies,
followed by the lilies curling orange and red
and gold from their stabbing stamens. Of course
I adore the peonies, their tight fat buds luring
busy ants, sticky infant fists exploding into
tender fireworks that last just as long before
a hard drooping in the first serious rain and then
an ignominious melting into the dirt. But my favorite
might be the luxurious stands of iris, wild and
cultivated, thick green thumbs peeling out
into delicate vaginal fabric, plump, ripe, secret,
and heroically tenacious, rising up long after
the planting gardener has gone.
