Here is a poem about a spinster of a certain age, who
loves her flowers much more than she can love man.
There's a great storm, there's a little truth behind this poem,
I was one summer in Colorado teaching
and after the leaves were all out
and the flowers were in full bloom,
there came a dreadful hailstorm and cut their leaves
off the trees and shattered the flowers.
And there was not much recovery, it was a blasted summer.
When Miriam Tazewell heard the tempest bursting and his wrathy
whips across the sky drawn crackling,
she stuffed her ears for fright, like a young thing,
and with heart full of the flowers took to weeping.
But the Earth shook dry his old back in good season,
he had weathered storms that drenched him deep as this one.
And the sun, Miriam, ascended to his Dominion.
This storm was withered against his empyrean.
After the storm, she went forth the skirts
kilted to see in the strong sun her lawn deflowered.
Her tulip, iris, peony strong and pelted.
Pots of geranium spilled and the stalks naked.
This spring transpired in that year with no flowers,
but the regular stars went busily on their courses.
Suppers and cards were calendared, and some bridals.
And the birds demurely sang in the bitten poplars.
To Miriam Tazewell, the whole world
was villain to prosper when the fragile babes had fallen.
And not to unstop her own storm and be
maudlin, for weeks she went untidy, she went sullen.