The philosophy of cut flowers

The thing about cut flowers
is that they put you in the moment.

With cut flowers
the only place they make sense
is now.
Tomorrow they’ll be in the bin.

Like an ice sculpture.
All that work,
all that beauty,
gone.
‘Why didn’t they carve it in stone,
then it’d last forever.’
Exactly.

Beauty is honed by brevity.
The poignancy of its brief existence
not a tragedy
but a piquancy.

With beauty, with cut flowers,
if you’re not in the moment
you miss the point
entirely.

Flower arranging

for Jessie

I watch you work.
The considered selection
and mindful placement
of just the right bud
just the right leaf
just the right frond
just the right colour.

I watch you judge.
Your hand guided by an innate sense
of beauty and balance,
of what’s ‘right’.

I watch it bloom.
The whole
even more beautiful
than its beautiful parts.

I watch you
weaving your soul into your work.

And you say you’re not a poet…

Russ Talbot lives in Adelaide. A Poet’s Corner contributor since its ‘Independent Weekly’ print days, he discovered the pleasure of writing after suffering an acquired brain injury (ABI) as the result of a brain tumour. He has had poems published in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and US, and in 2015 Ginninderra Press published his poetry chapbook collection ‘Things That Make Your Heart Beat’ through its Picaro Poets series.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.