Poems - Musings

posted by :

Bouquet

Each week, when I do my grocery shopping, I buy flowers to bring back home. I almost always place them on my kitchen table, where my purchase will usually be rearranged into a single large bouquet with a few smaller pieces, often times single flowers, that get placed throughout the apartment. On this crisp fall day, my larger bouquet has a palm-sized sunflower - with bright yellow petals, deep brown seeds, and a vibrant green stem - surrounded by amber chrysanthemums, dark crimson daisies, pastel peach-colored flowers also from the daisy family (though I’m not quite sure what they’re called), rich purple statices and lively green asters. Peeking through it all is a single dark-brown cattail, bringing a glorious contrast to the bouquet's shape and textures.

The bouquet sits next to a brass lamp that I have placed in the center of the table, but close to the wall. It has a lampshade made of dark green glass, and there's an old chain hanging down that I have to pull to make the light turn on. It reminds me of my childhood home. I had a similar lamp on the desk in my bedroom; I used to read my books by it. On the other side of the lamp is a bar of chocolate, a couple of miniature golden pumpkins, and a small vase that’s really just a well-worn tiny glass bottle picked up years ago at a flea market. It’s half filled with water, and there’s a single daisy rising out of it. It reminds me of how beautiful a single flower can be.

This one has venerable violet-colored petals extending out from its stem, and soft white trimming the tips and reaching down the sides of each one. Every day this week, I’ve gazed at this solitary flower when I have my morning coffee. And I glance at it throughout the day, as it calls my attention for some reason. I wonder if it’s telling me it’s ok to be alone. Perhaps it’s a story of how, though distanced, I’m also part of a big bouquet known as humanity. Or maybe it’s a story showing what can happen when you stand tall in your own beauty.