Ode to the Begonia

Last summer I had a crush on a plant.

My Dad planted the most beautiful begonia in a blue terracotta pot and it sat proudly on the doorstep all summer.

It was rich, yellow, full and I adored it. When I was in the garden I could never stop staring at it. There are always many flowers in our garden but my eyes were always drawn back to the begonia.

I loved that plant so much that when it did finally start to wilt I was moved out of sadness to write a poem. It was the first poem I had written since my early teens.

Pale yellow and voluptuous in the clean morning light,
Petals bursting from your silken coral dressing gown,
Heads bowed humbly, oblivious to your own beauty,
Always waiting with a warm smile.

You. Yellow, silky, laughing and dancing
For the rest of the garden flowers,
For the reluctant sun,
For the frisky wind,
For a besotted me.

Is is your image I have framed and hung,
Pride of place in my mind,
For the coming of the black and white winter.

I don't even know where the poem came from after so many dormant years. It just bubbled up out of nowhere and was hurridly transferred to a scrap of paper.

Later when I reread the poem I couldn't relate to the 'me' who had written it- I don't write poetry anymore. I am poetic but I'm not a poet.

When my car broke a similar situation occured. During the tears on my last drive home, words began to form alliances, sentences were built. I had a poem in a raw form. When I got home, I got caught up in other things and the poem was gone. I couldn't even recall one line of the poem which had so perfectly captured my feelings at losing my first car.

Perhaps there is a poet in me...but where does he hide? And why does he come so infrequently?

Some more photos of the begonia: