Illustration by Pam Roberts

Tulips

In four years I have not taken the tulip bulbs
out of the ground and done what people say I should:
bury them in the basement, hide them in the dark —
as if it isn't dark enough under ground?
It is part of my continuing carelessness with plants.
Nevertheless, they grow, a little wild, perhaps, and unpredictable.
The tulips, once pure whites and stately reds, are now all pink,
a heathered pale hue that seems honest, a pink that
the best of both in their strong petals, not quite filled in
completely, like the haphazard coloring of an inattentive child.

Still, they return each year when late April chills give way
to the warming skies of May. And for a while they stand
above everything else in that little plot of promise,
announcing another safe passage, in spite of my neglect —
proclaiming the covenant of cycles, fueled by water, sun,
and the spirit-rich earth which holds the memory of tulips
for another year.

-- Linda Dini Jenkins

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