14 lines about wildflowers
In this dream I was at a poetry contest whose winner would be admitted to this poetry school. I had submitted my poem but all of the judges hated it. They felt my poem wasn't structured well and didn't conform to the rules of poetry. I appealed to the white-haired chief judge. He decided that I could have one more chance. I could come to study with him if I brought him a 14 line poem explaining why I preferred wildflowers to roses.
Easy!
Anyway, I haven't written the poem, I really am not a poet. But I have thought a lot about why I prefer wildflowers to roses.
The easiest reason is my preference for chance and chaos over predestination and order. One ragged golden flower blooming in a dirt parking lot seems more beautiful than any vase of twelve white roses. Just from the contrast and integrity of beauty insisting upon itself despite the constructions of men.
It is the reason why I prefer Janis Joplin to Frank Sinatra. The rough honesty of her voice compared to the slick technicality of his. Why I like the blues more than classical music. Why I want to live in an old weathered house and not a slick new one. Why I want my blue jeans old and worn (by me).
It is why I prefer natural hair to processed. I hate mousse and hairspray. I can remember time spent staring in the mirror with brush and desperation trying to make my hair look like someone else's. Not to say I don't enjoy coloring and cutting it, but that I don't want to freeze it into an imitation of this years perfect model.
From growing up in a semi-arid world I know what it is like to spend months with brown hills and dirt. Then comes spring and those flowers come up in the most interesting places. And
sometimes they are so tiny and fragile. Not at all something you could pick and take home to put in a vase. They would die! But worse you would be robbing the world of that tiny spark of color and delicacy in the middle of brown thorns and dust. It would be pure selfishness.
Those wildflowers can be tough too. They blossom in dirt so thin that you wouldn't think it could support any kind of growth. They will grow out of hard packed white sand or dirt so empty of life that it sifts through your fingers and flies away on the wind, but wildflowers grow there.
But roses, they are grown to be picked. Cultivated and cossetted. Pampered and protected. And lovely. I know they are beautiful. I know that their smell is ravishing on a spring night. I remember being in love at midnight with white roses in the moonlight.
But that isn't enough to get most of us through life. These roses are nice, but we need something tougher, something more resilient. Something that will continue to insist on beauty even in the most inhospitable and hostile environments.
--
reposted by dovie devine to Feeding the Baby at 4/14/2006 06:04:00 AM
Easy!
Anyway, I haven't written the poem, I really am not a poet. But I have thought a lot about why I prefer wildflowers to roses.
The easiest reason is my preference for chance and chaos over predestination and order. One ragged golden flower blooming in a dirt parking lot seems more beautiful than any vase of twelve white roses. Just from the contrast and integrity of beauty insisting upon itself despite the constructions of men.
It is the reason why I prefer Janis Joplin to Frank Sinatra. The rough honesty of her voice compared to the slick technicality of his. Why I like the blues more than classical music. Why I want to live in an old weathered house and not a slick new one. Why I want my blue jeans old and worn (by me).
It is why I prefer natural hair to processed. I hate mousse and hairspray. I can remember time spent staring in the mirror with brush and desperation trying to make my hair look like someone else's. Not to say I don't enjoy coloring and cutting it, but that I don't want to freeze it into an imitation of this years perfect model.
From growing up in a semi-arid world I know what it is like to spend months with brown hills and dirt. Then comes spring and those flowers come up in the most interesting places. And
sometimes they are so tiny and fragile. Not at all something you could pick and take home to put in a vase. They would die! But worse you would be robbing the world of that tiny spark of color and delicacy in the middle of brown thorns and dust. It would be pure selfishness.Those wildflowers can be tough too. They blossom in dirt so thin that you wouldn't think it could support any kind of growth. They will grow out of hard packed white sand or dirt so empty of life that it sifts through your fingers and flies away on the wind, but wildflowers grow there.
But roses, they are grown to be picked. Cultivated and cossetted. Pampered and protected. And lovely. I know they are beautiful. I know that their smell is ravishing on a spring night. I remember being in love at midnight with white roses in the moonlight.
But that isn't enough to get most of us through life. These roses are nice, but we need something tougher, something more resilient. Something that will continue to insist on beauty even in the most inhospitable and hostile environments.
--
reposted by dovie devine to Feeding the Baby at 4/14/2006 06:04:00 AM
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