Bulbs

Though it’s officially astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere, winter isn’t budging in the Berkshires. It snowed again last night. Just a light dusting, but enough to make it clear that it’s a little too early in the game to start counting our spring chickens. Desperate for a little color, we stopped by the Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Bulb Show. The air was warm and fragrant and dense with an almost equatorial humidity. Though not large, the Fitzpatrick greenhouse was packed with enough tulips, daffodils, jonquils, grape hyacinths, and forest lilies to overwhelm the winter-deprived senses. On a dull cold windy day, we were magically transported to the height of spring’s full, riotous bloom. Here’s a poem on the subject by A. E. Stallings, who uses poetic form with such wit and dexterity.

Tulips

by A. E. Stallings

The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Parading finishes like starts,

Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
The tulips make me want to see—
The tulips make the other me
(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.