Napo 3: Why Do You Write About Flowers?

 

Admiring Linda Pastan’s “Why Are Your Poems so Dark?”

 

Or did you mean to ask

"Why are you sad so often?"

 

Ask the moon.

Ask what it has witnessed.

 

 

This poem is so simple and so powerful all at once. It’s about the sadness beneath the surface of our lives, the necessary sadness. That idea has always been appealing and interesting to me. Let’s unpack this poem a little:

 

I can relate to this poem because I often feel like I write too many sad poems lately, I guess because the way the world has been going, both personally and universally, it seems. We’ve lived through a pandemic, the Trump presidency, civil unrest, we witnessed the murder of George Floyd, the January 6^th riots and insurrection, and now our world teeters on the edge of war. So it seems ridiculous for poems to be happy. It makes sense that poems need to be sad, dark, and real.

 

Literal darkness becomes a metaphor for the sadness here. The moon stays in the shadows. The dark ink on a paper is necessary for a poem to get its message across. God created light but “didn’t banish darkness.” Instead, He gave it to us in small doses, maybe to appreciate the light.

 

The poem ends with a return to the original symbol of the moon. She directs us “Ask the moon. / Ask what it has witnessed.”

 

And of course we can think of the millions of atrocities that moon has witnessed.

 

I’m going to use these last four lines as the base of my glosa poem. But I want to turn this poem on its head for a moment. Sometimes, it’s important to also write happy poems. To look for moments of joy. I’m thinking of Ross Gay’s “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.”

 

I think in my poem, I’m going to write about why it’s important to keep faith alive. You could also ask the moon what it’s witnessed in a good way. What miracles have happened under the cover of darkness?

 

Why Do You Write About Flowers?

 

Somewhere, one is always blooming—

At the grocery store floral department,

In an old lady’s garden across the street,

deep in the forests outside of town,

or rooted in the heart, always. Across an ocean,

A continent away, a sunflower unfolds in a field

In Ukraine, the first of millions as a Judas tree

Tires with the heavy weight of so much red,

So much beauty, set against a backdrop of crumbling.

Isn’t this the stuff of poetry?

Or did you mean to ask

 

something else, like why flowers at all—

frivolous, pretty things that die in vases

every day, on the kitchen table a bouquet,

from the woman at the grocery store

who gave them to me, who said I looked

like I needed them, a bunch of carnations,

yellow and pink, pink the color of love

and the color of loss.

Why are you sad so often

 

In a world of flowers? I’m asking you

As much as I’m asking me. Spring

Nips at the heels, and soon, this yard

Will explode again with clovers

Like landmines of joy. For every blossom

Lost last year, I know that two will take its place.

I only have to

Ask the moon,

 

Who’s seen it all, what happens underneath

The cover of darkness to flowers like these,

Like us, who take what’s good about the world,

The sunshine streaming down, and store it

Deep within the heart for later.

Ask what it has witnessed.

I want to work this poem a little more--distill its message. I want to show that even in times of ugliness, the personal and the universal juxtaposed, there's reason to be joyful. Maybe that it's ok to be joyful. Look at the flowers on your kitchen table, in a makeshift vase. They're beautiful, aren't they?