Saturday, September 13, 2025

let's talk about flowers

I subscribe to a poem-a-day newsletter, Poetry Town, written by George Bilger. Every day George selects a poem he really likes and then writes a short commentary why he chose this poem. 

The news coming from the US in the past few days has been horrific. As George says in his commentary, "Talking about flowers is just what we need." But we do need more than to talk about flowers. The broader picture is we need face-to-face connections, the human touch, rather than experiencing life through phone or computer screens. Evil has become content and humanity has become scrollable. We're losing the one thing that makes us human, the ability to feel. I am very aware that the political arena plays a big part in peoples' behaviors and that our members of Congress need to enact some tighter gun control legislation and that's as political as I'm going to get. 

So now, We need to talk about flowers ðŸŒ¸ ðŸŒ¸ ðŸŒ¸ ðŸŒ¸ or other things that brought a bit of happiness to you this week.


We

by Carl Dennis

I’m gratified by the use of the word “we”

In the sentence my neighbor utters quietly

As she stands in her driveway, in her yellow raincoat:

“We really needed this rain,”

A “we” that includes not only a gray-haired White man

And a Black woman whose hair is still dark but also

Some of the green life we’ve gathered about us:

The pin oaks and silver maples, the holly

And lilac and dogwood, whose ancestors

Did what they could to make a home here

Millions of years before our ancestors

Walked down the gangway of a steamer from Bremen

Or were led in chains from a sailing ship

That had left Sierra Leone two months before.

We need this rain to remind us we don’t dwell

In a desert we have to cross to reach a promised land.

Here we are in the land of promises

Kept and not kept that we’ve promised ourselves

To be concerned with. Look how these trees

Are concerning themselves with the rain

That the grass is already welcoming

With many shades of a deeper green.

__________

From Earthborn, Penguin Books, 2022.



Why I Chose This Poem

My neighbor two houses down is Black, and a wonderful gardener. Over the twenty years I’ve known him we’ve stood in his front yard countless times, talking about his roses, his perennials, the whimsical border of wildflowers he’s planted along the sidewalk. Not once have we talked about race. Talking about flowers is just what we need.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, I love that poem and I love the reason it was chosen. I'm all for talking about flowers and now I'm even glad I posted a flower photo today.

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    Replies
    1. Your flower photos are beautiful and brought a smile. Your blog is a bright spot to start my morning.

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  2. I didn't post a flower photo today but I DID post a picture of some brownies I baked. So maybe that could kind of count as a flour photo! 😄

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