I admit it:
I left them out in the frost.
Forgotten. Ignored. Unloved.
And there, uncared for,
they suffered and perished
as I busied myself with other things.
Until at last it was too late.
I brought them in, yes,
rinsed off their pots
and watered them
and watched with faltering hope
as day by day they withered.
I admit it:
the kitchen herbs fared better.
Kept on a sunny window ledge;
their usefulness recognised,
their needs noticed.
Not for them the lonely decay
of abandonment.
But what is this?
Green shoots? New life?
The grace of undeserved hope
springs forth from some dark place!
With youth's eternal optimism
threading its way undeterred
by the skeletal remains of past tragedies.
Upwards and towards the light
they grow and they delight!
Dear Reader,
There is a part of me that thinks a good poem should be like a good joke and not need any explanation. But I am new and inexperienced at this poem-writing malarkey and so I got to wondering.
I wonder what you think of when you read this poem. Perhaps you are in a hurry with no time to reflect and so they are just some unfortunate geraniums in a pot. You would be right, of course. But as I started to reflect, the geraniums also became a metaphor for all the times we forget to notice, care and act, and so injustice goes on unchallenged, wrongs go on un-righted and suffering goes on neglected. Or, like the herbs on the kitchen windowsill, there are some situations which do prompt us to respond, whilst others seem so distant that we don’t connect with them until it is too late.
I wonder how you felt reading the last verse of the poem? Did you feel anything of that same sense of relief at the grace I was afforded, because despite my failings there is, unmerited and undeserved, new life and a new chance?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
© Jo Kudlacik 16th March, 2024
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