Again Thinking

Flowers symbolize beauty and softness and gardens; the peace and bounty of a higher power in some religions. We, however, tend to speak of nature in the past tense these days.

Yet the enormity of what man is doing to the planet was voiced a long time ago. The book, Silent Spring, was hailed as a chilling prophecy by the concerned few when it appeared more than fifty years ago, but was little heeded by those who had the authority to act, just as with today's warnings of global warming.

For the poet and songwriter a flower is a magical construction - it stands in for love, death, resilience; and colours, scents, shapes and sizes allow a pleiad of emotions to flow into words and music. We can ask in sadness where all the flowers have gone, compare our love to a red red rose. . .

For how much longer?


tenacious

there is in this orchid tenacity,
a refusal to fade and fall.
dirty white petals framing a circle
converge upon a central simplicity,
beauty.

the stone mind rejects flowers
crushing petals in harsh grip
protecting its isolation:
mutilating flowers in a garden
re-organising the mind's blossoms,
throwing away the blooms that remind

from The Stone Mind
Once the Horsemen and Other Poems
University Education Press Singapore,1972