10 Mar 2014

Celandines

Five celandines lifted sunshine faces
to me, beaming from the grass by my door.

" Good morning, m'am, and how are you today?"

Their silent voices curtsied old fashioned
greetings across time.
                                        Once, the countryside
was called 'home' by many people - the towns
a farm-cart ride away, beyond blue hills -
and flowers like these would have been well known
to everybody... unremarkable.

But the gloss on the golden petals here
resembles plastic-coated packaging,
as though they have been factory processed
until all their natural beauty has been
overlaid with advertising slogans.

Only expectations and perspectives
have changed since the world was a simpler place,
but those changes have tarnished our vision,
until reality has dimmed, perhaps,
and our yardstick for measuring happiness
has changed too, beyond all recognition.



Linked to IGWRT's open Link Monday

11 comments:

  1. You make such a valid statement here, Jinksy. You poem is so well-constructed to take us from that simple beauty to the modern ignorance of such small pleasures as 5 yellow flowers at your doorstep.

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  2. Wow...you've made me feel nostalgic and cynical in just one poem. I'd rather forget about the ad slogans and continue the conversation with the flowers. Very nice work.
    Steve K.

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  3. My thoughts echo both Kerry and Steve's. This is very well done!

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  4. YES! You have expressed it exactly!!!!

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  5. yes! yes. and also, i'm waiting impatiently for those blooms to arrive.

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  6. I think there is much truth in what you've said…and I also think for some of us the simple things still give us great pleasure and really are enough and plenty.

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  7. Rightly so Jinsky! One tends to take short cuts with the fast pace of modern living. Wonderful write!

    Hank

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  8. Wow, starting with pleasure and nostalgia sure can lead to bitterness. Lots is lost. Let's preserve what grace we can.

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  9. An awesome trip with a bittersweet but oh so true look at what we have lost. I too, have been writing such poetry lately and it needs to be heard along with the beautiful Celandines.

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  10. It made me home sick in a good way Thank you

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  11. Sad, but true. The art is in how you captured that truth...caused an emotional reaction in this reader.. Well done. Vb

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