Member Poem

My favorite flower of summer
I’ve always known them as naked ladies
It’s what my father always called them
The statuesque Belladonna
Tall, slender, softest pink
My mind recalls the biblical verse
“Consider how the lilies grow”
For a moment I rest my thoughts
On the lilies
Then the roses in my garden
A verse from James Montgomery
“The rose has but a summer reign
The daisy is forever”
The fleeting and the infinite
My thoughts turn to the Psalmist
“Weeping may last for a night
But joy comes in the morning”
Contemplation of flora and tears
Tears often watering the garden of our soul
Droplets of hope
Seeping into our spirit’s soil
Often when all dreams seem to dying
New life springs forth from unexpected sources
I read of a young girl
Innocent victim of man’s rage
The sufferer of a war not of her making
Her existence waning
Would she be another beautiful, fragile flower
Trampled under soldier’s boot?
I cannot imagine her fear
In her darkest hours of desperation
Starvation soon to be her fate
It is then the source least expected
The tulip bulb presents itself
The meal upon her table
She takes its sustenance in
Within her springs a root
Soon she will become the bloom
A hybrid of agony and hope
Elegant, lithe, graceful, rare
Flowering like no other
Eternal