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So much depends on the crystal vase filled with pink roses on the black counter mid winter. That’s my paraphase of William Carlos Williams poem about white chickens. I’m constantly amazed to discover what an inexpensive grocery store flower bunch does to counter the frozen winter landscape. It brightens the scene and adds a splash of color and life.
Shortly after I took this photo I was listening to Writers Almanac and heard this poem. Perfect for my experience with the roses. Enjoy.
Flowers
by Linda Pastan
The deep strangeness
of flowers in winter—
the orange of clivia,
or this creamy white rose
in its stoneware
vase, while outside
another white
like petals drifting down.
Is it real?
a visitor asks,
meaning the odd magenta
orchid on our sill
unnatural
as makeup on a child.
It’s freezing all around us—
salt cold on the lips,
the flinty blacks and grays
of January in any northern city,
and flowers
everywhere:
in the supermarket
by cans of juice,
filling the heated stalls
near the river—
secular lilies engorged
with scent,
notched tulips, crimson
and pink, ablaze
in the icy
corridors of winter.
“Flowers” by Linda Pastan, from Traveling Light. © Norton, 2010. Reprinted with permission.
I absolutely endorse your sentiments about a vase of roses in the bleakness of winter, Maria.
I have no such winter here, but just putting a big bunch of purple agapanthus in a vase in the living room changed the atmosphere this morning.
And such a lovely poem. Flowers and gardens do indeed open up the channels of the heart and mind to allow beautiful thoughts and images to crystallise. Thank you.