Friday 

24 November 2017

— The magpies have found the bits of stale bread.

Good Morning All,

The spectacular flower in today’s Day Book is a Strelitzia, otherwise known as Bird of Paradise. It was named after King George III’s wife Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was a botanist who helped expand Kew Gardens (when she and George were not having 15 children.) In southern Africa where it grows in the wild it is commonly known as the crane flower, and it appears on the reverse of a South African 50-cent piece. 

Speaking of flowers, at least once every summer when we were in the States, Britta would assemble her favorite wildflower bouquet, consisting of black-eyed susans, chicory, and Queen Anne’s Lace, all of which grew in profusion along the roadsides of western Massachusetts.

In today’s Day Book poem, the persona/speaker says that whatever high powers are in charge of grief should not allow such sorrow to go one without end. The speaker suggests to the reader (presumably the someone feeling that grief) to go get a milk bottle, put it in a sunny place, and fill it with Britta’s favorite wildflowers. Then, even though the reader/griever has yet the map of sorrow on his face, he should invite the bees to come, because their humming will bring him some comfort.

Which gets us to the Twilight Zone aspect of this poem. I have attached my name to it, though I do not believe I have ever written another poem even remotely like it. I do not think I wrote this one. Sitting at my computer, it was far more as though I were taking dictation. In three minutes, give or take, listening to somewhere inside me, I tapped it out exactly as it appears now on the page. I do believe I know from where it came, and if I ever do publish a thin book of poems I will put her name where it deserves to be.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

 

Summer Elegy 
Bheka Pierce

 

No end to Sorrow’s season 

When ministries of grace 

Let such loss abide.

Black-eyed Susans, 

Queen Anne’s Lace, 

Blue Chicory besides.

Sorrow finds good reason 

To take a milk jug for a vase, 

And put it in a sunlit place.

Black-eyed Susans, 

Queen Anne’s Lace, 

Blue Chicory besides.

Sorrow’s legacy upon thy face, 

Invite the bees from all around, 

The small comforts of such sounds.

Black-eyed Susans, 

Queen Anne’s Lace, 

Blue Chicory besides.