(NaPoWriMo, day 11. The challenge today was to engage with ‘the language of flowers’: ‘to write a poem in which one or more flowers take on specific meanings.’ Flowers had featured in yesterday’s hay(na)kus, though, and when I looked at the glossary of flower meanings, the one that made me feel like writing a poem wasn’t a flower but a tree that took me back to the experience of a few mornings ago…)
perhaps this is why
it wasn’t flowers
that drew me but trees
that morning after
a restless night.
you can’t sit in a flower
feel held, warmed by moss
at home with spiders and birds
who perhaps feel it too.
you can’t expect of a flower
the patience
to welcome you back
across seasons and rhythms
of growth
and of rest.
some days it isn’t
the language of flowers
you need
but the quiet whispers
of oaks.
from the honesty box 