Songs of a Bruised Camellia

Whether I’d like to admit it or not, I’m not the flower everyone thinks I am.
I am not the flower.
I am not her.
Not that one.
I am another one.
Whether I’d like to admit it or not, my fragrance is not the one most preferred.
I’m not that fragrance.
I’m not her.
I am another one.

Whether I’d like to admit it or not, my petals are not those pristine orbed pillows
Prompted out of hiding by the dappled shade of spring.
I am not a gardenia. I am a camellia. People often mix us up. Gardenia spreads her blooms from spring to summer, but I am different. My blooms appear among the first bloomers of Spring and then they quickly fall to the ground and bruise under everything and anything close and prevalent. Especially air. It’s true I live in a region where once a year an entire festival is held in my honor. It is a ghastly affair (if you are a flower) during which an enormous spectrum of all varieties of my kind are placed in exotic vases or mounted on creatively altered apparatus so as to reveal their most stunning profiles. The flowers are hideously ranked according to the tastes and expectations of fickle viewers.

This shouldn’t surprise me as it happens to everything in the created order. Gardeners are not immune to falling into the same traps the whole of society forces upon them. What makes it particularly difficult is my inability to change myself into that other flower. Even if I could, I imagine the confusion would be repeated by those who were unable to identify me in my original state. I have succumbed to the pressure before. Deciding to proclaim myself a this or a that, rather than saving my efforts to be fully who I am based on the genealogy given to me by my Maker. It was a disaster.

I am the flower God designed me to be.
I am His Flower.
I am His Her.
I am His one.
I am the fragrance God breathed into me.
My breath is from God.
I am His.

I bruise easily. I am short-lived. The very air around me presses in and leaves a mark. I was not designed for competitions but rather to be loved and to bring beauty into the world. Not for beauty’s sake alone, but for the sake of turning people on their heels, for bringing them up short and making them stop and ask how is it that such a dainty thing could come randomly into existence? Given my short blooming season, I understand how my value could be overlooked, but even when my blooms are dormant, my glossy leaves make magnificent nets for the sunshine and extraordinary mirrors for God the Master Gardener. Nothing was spared in my creation to reveal a tiny, teeny facet of the abundance of God’s astonishing resources that were lovingly expended for me.

Whether I’d like to admit it or not, I’m not the flower everyone thinks I am.
I am not the flower.
I am not her.
Not that one.
I am another one.

Choose Trust

Grandmother Thanks Little

Long before the Grimm’s brothers shut down their law firm,
and owned up to their art,
I shuddered swiftly from shadow to shadow,
the big bad pursuing.
To where? For what?
All I knew was to hide or keep going.

Yours was a story slipped from God through me,
through my mother,
through her mother
through the mother before,
erupting first through Eve.

Just like Eve, I hid behind the moon white gardenias,
longing with bruised desire,
waiting for its scent to keep its promise
and return us to the garden.

Distracted by my longing, I forgot everyone else, especially you,
the sweet and innocent Woodcutter’s Daughter.
selectively listening, strung out by half-baked understanding
throwing the Woodcutter’s wealth to the false fires
of what kept me cold and hungry.

But then the Grimm’s caught wind of our story, arrived
just after big bad hid his fangs in a rumor,
stuffed his claws in a lie and delivered his most persuasive speech.
Seeing me worry-weak, settling for lesser than less,
they sent you from The Woodcutter’s hearth
and into my world with your luscious basket
and the red hooded cape I forced you to wear.

But for your timely pleas, your child-like cries for help,
your unfaltering dependence on The Woodcutter, I
would have been dead consumed, our story lost in
legal practicalities.

Thank you.

The Flower Girl

​The Flower Girl

She got tired for awhile; no, that's not quite it. She started out tired.
It took her decades to get rested up. Her weariness came over her the
minute she woke up, everyday like fog off the ocean. One day she
named her fatigue and gave it back to the night. Without fatigue fear
flooded the yawning space. Once she put a name to it, she sent it to
school as it lacked manners and clarity, worse civility. It was all arms
swinging, legs kicking and mouth smacking. She taught it
to keep its mouth shut and its delusional appendages to itself.

With so much freedom from this ill-mannered bully, she got side-tracked
with grandiosity. Now I can conquer the world, she thought. But even
before she could translate the thought to words, Wisdom arched its
brow. "The world has already been conquered," it said. "You might want
to pick a bouquet of flowers and deliver them to a friend." Which is
exactly what she did. But first she took a long, cleansing look at them
herself. It is no small thing to be schooled by flowers.

The Yellow Suitcase excerpt (pg. 3)

Yellow.
The suitcase is as close to yellow as any other color.
For a surprise,
the sisters wrap it with ribbons.

The brothers scratch blessings
in its yellow side.

The lovers latch arms.
This is why they think
they are strong, why they believe they have power.
There is strength
in their arms.
They embrace everything. Lift much.
Carry more.
The way is surprisingly rough.

She doesn’t mention the presence of hills
Ignores the ruts, sees only small declivities,
no ditches, no peaks, certainly no cliffs.

The road narrows, erupts with trees.
An unexpected wind sweeps down.

Avoiding the wind, she runs.
Years of running begin.
To slow her down, wild animals appear.
Wild animals distract her.
She dare not stay, dare not linger.
Wild animals can never be tamed.


Birds. Far off, now closer.
Finally, alarmingly near, in her face,
her hair, frisking her shoulders.
Infantry of feathers.
Battalion of beaks.

The Yellow Suitcase (excerpt pg. 2)

She knows nothing.
Less than nothing.
This is what she knows.
She has agreed to what
she does not know, to what
she believes will be easy.

Something black.
Something white.

Knowing she knows nothing
happens later. This is now.
Now she does not cry.
She leaves her weeping behind.
Behind is where
her weeping remains.

A ring is slipped on her finger.
A circle of gold.
And then on his, his hand is
also captured with gold.
Pictures are taken.
Pictures help with
remembering.
Nothing is needed
to help them forget.
Forgetting is easier
than remembering.

Between them is a suitcase.

The Yellow Suitcase - A Fairy Tale For Adults

It is a simple occasion.
What can I say?
The wedding is
not elaborate.
They wear black and white.

No, this is wrong.
White and black.

The bride comes first.
Always the bride first.
Everyone agrees.
Everyone -
Florist. Caterers. Musicians.
Even the printers.

The guests bring gifts.
Tied with ribbons,
swaddled in tissue,
dressed in foil paper,
kissed with glitter cards.

She carries a glass bouquet.
Imagine. Breakable blooms.
Blooms carried like
sky hooks to love.

It is a happy occasion.
But there are tears.
Wept and unwept.
The tears are here.

-1-

The Clock Ticks, The Peacock Warns, The Butterfly Soars

In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty – Christopher Morley

Stop Thief

She wasn’t always so fluid.
She thinks.
This is a thought,
Not a sentence.
By desperate she means in danger of leaking out of herself.
People do all the time, she thinks, remembering all the puddles.
This goes beyond incontinence, she thinks.
This is a thought,
Not a sentence.
The sentence would go like this: I hate dreaming I am somewhere and waking up somewhere else.
(If it was a sentence, and if the dreaming place rippled and the waking place caged.))

Write it out. Write it out.
This is an encouragement.
Writing seems monumental until she considered the weight of a thought.
She often had such enormous thoughts they fell on her chest like stones
Writing seems dull until she understood the sharp edge of an undisclosed thought.
Once she cut off her own leg with one.
For years she limped looking rather than writing.
Of course as it is with all lost things, they tend to turn up in the places no one looks.
This is reality.
Who wants to go there? She asks. This valid question holds the key to the cage.
No one answers.
Why? She asks, folding the key into a cork screw.
No one hears it.
Write it out. Write it out.
Bring others into your undiscovered world.
They have it too. It is not up to them. It is up to you.
Delete.
Correction:
Up to me.

It’s enormous.
It’s dark.
It circles around her.
It takes time, she thinks, picturing a clock propelled by a million swiped legs.
Oh there, she shouts with a ball point pen.
I recognize that one. It’s mine, she writes, feeling the loss of her limp.

Falling from Grace to Grace