Tether us to a Lily or to a Rose—
And bid us diet on the Dew inside—²
A Gardenia’s breath can revive a Homeland!³
Where the Bee sucks, there suck I—
In the Cowslip’s bell I lie.⁴
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen—
And waste its Sweetness on the desert air.⁵
If we shall cease to bring a Rose upon a festal day—
‘Twill be because: Beyond the Rose we have been called away …⁶
The red Rose cries: “She is near, she is near,”
And the White Rose weeps: “She is late,”
The Larkspur listens: “I hear, I hear,”
And the Lily whispers: “I wait.”⁷
Some Flowers come in Human form:⁸
Out of our bosum the Blosme sprong—⁹
People, who aren’t kin to themselves,
Shall be kin to Mulleins and Daisies.¹⁰
¹ Audre Lorde, Recreation
² Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
³ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Amira El-Zein, Poetic Regulations
⁴ William Shakespeare, The Tempest
⁵ Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard
⁶ Emily Dickinson, If I Should Cease to Bring a Rose
⁷ Lord Tennyson, Come into the Garden, Maud
⁸ Mary Gaitskill, Folk Song
⁹ Anonymous c. 14th, Of a Rose, a Lovely Rose
¹⁰ Wendell Berry, Window Poems