Bring Me No Lilies
Weekly Scribblings #51: Looking Back and Writing Forward
...revisit our 2020 Weekly Scribblings selection, and write new poetry or prose using one of our old prompts. Please add the title (and link, if you can) of your chosen prompt to your post.
My choice was
Weekly Scribblings #5 A Mouthful of Flowers
Your challenge today is to write while inspired by flowers. Feel free to associate them with memories, to romanticize, to go dark or somber, to press them neatly between pages.
the cloying sweetness nauseates.
If you ever knew me,
place no lilies on my grave.
Bring me iris wet with dew or
armfuls of lavender and tansy.
Plant cosmos
and coreopsis
to please the bees
and me.
I will not see them,
nor breathe in their heady scents.
But, just now,
I envisage you doing so, and it
gives me pleasure
in this little time left.
©2021 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved
I love this! It applies to me as well, especially the cosmos and coreopsis!
ReplyDeleteOh, I love coreopsis! I grow the annual kinds, but have so many perennials too. They propagate so easily I may have nothing but if I keep it up!
DeleteI love this one so much, Lisa. We should all let those we love and who love us back what holds the most meaning for us. Like that, they will always know how to stay close to us... even after we're gone.
ReplyDeleteThank you. We really should communicate better. Some family members don't really know each other at all.
DeleteBest Wishes for a Happy 2021
ReplyDeleteMuch✨love
Thank you so much! 2021 has already been quite unusual, but good things are in store, right? :)
DeleteWhat Magaly said!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree as well.
DeleteThis is a fun poem, Lisa. I liked your flower variety.
ReplyDelete"fine winter flowers
cosmos and coreopsis
rabbits need to eat"
So do the rabbits, they are really thick around our neighborhood.
..
Thanks, the flowers are ones I like! And, I don't like lilies at all, except daylilies. I have never had a rabbit problem. Lucky me!
DeleteYour poem couldn’t have come at a better time, Lisa. It’s the fourth anniversary of my mum’s death on Saturday and these could have been her words: ‘Bring me iris wet with dew or armfuls of lavender and tansy’ Thank you..
ReplyDeleteOh, I am so sorry for you loss. Mine's been gone longer, but I still miss her mothering. I'll be thinking of you tomorrow, and wishing you the best.
DeleteA few of my favorite flowers ,,, a great return to The Scribblings.
ReplyDeleteMine too!
DeleteI like how you've imagined someone coming to your grave with your favorite flowers. It's a serene and soothing picture.
ReplyDeleteThank you. When I read the prompt I thought of lilies, and how I didn't like them! Anyone who knows me would know that, I hope. Unless they think it means daylilies, which I love. The other lilies? When I worked in a farm and ranch store we sold so many Easter lilies, and they were so sticky sweet smelling and just screamed "funeral" to me.
DeleteI love the thought behind this piece and how we really show our love when we know enough to listen and honor who the person was, rather than simply do what's expected. LOL, I plan to be cremated and my kids already said they'd get tea cups made from my ashes.
ReplyDeleteI will guess you are often drinking tea? See, they know you!
DeleteLike your choice of flowers, and the photo.
ReplyDeleteThanks. That photo is of my Butterfly Garden (get few butterflies, but plenty of insect pollinators). The two-toned coreopsis is "Up Tick" and the other some generic lance-leaf. Both perennial. And of course, annual bachelor button for my favorite blue!
Delete