National Poetry Month #3: Tulips


As I prepare this evening for a spring break trip to the Skagit Valley of Washington state I am thinking of tulips. This is a perfect selection for this evening.

Tulips

BY A. E. STALLINGS
The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Parading finishes like starts,

Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
The tulips make me want to see
The tulips make the other me
(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.
Source: Poetry (June 2009).

Comments