Poetry Jam: Rhododendron (Dark Thoughts)

Our Poetry Jam challenge this week is from Ms. Poetikat, and we are to write about the dark aspect of our flora. At a national conference this past May, I chaired a panel on Gaelic Gothic and discovered that gothic in the gruesome sense is not my cup of tea. However, there does exist a balance of positive and negative in life, and in my operetta, Luminescence, I address this through the spirit voice of Anne Sexton and her associated flower, Rhododendron.

Rhododendron: Dark Thoughts

(from my operetta, Luminescence)

From the corner of the garden,

a fierce wind buffets 

branches of the Rhododendron.

Now enters the looming danger 

of love’s despair.

Begonia, Narcissus,

and Southernwood

all bode a feeling of lost love

in the midst of this glorious

locus amoenus.

Anne whispers: 

Rhododendron is my flower’s name,

I bring dark thoughts

into this world of fragrance.

I make the lives of my seed

and the surrounding seeds

suffer as I do.

Man has attached meaning 

to our nature, proclaiming

that we ignore

the pleas of the world

within our hearts, 

so we suffer association

with the human frailties:

egotism, ultimate ruin, evil. 

But here in this garden, I see: 

The beauty in our lives

does surround us,

even in our darkest moments,

even in those isolated

hours of despair.

Jeanne I. Lakatos  2005