Always on Time

Thank you, Margaret Simon, at Reflections on the Teche, for hosting today. While you check out what she has in store for this Poetry Friday, you can read, on her June 2nd post, a found poem well worth reading that has to do with the protests of this week. There has been legal progress in the George Floyd case, and we hope, reform on many fronts over time.

Today I’ve been thinking about time and calendars. (as an aside, I don’t know why Julius Caesar is on the 1582 Gregorian calendar below. But like Susan B. Anthony’s face on our coins, Pope Gregory Xlll must have admired Caesar. )

Anyway, I’ve been thinking more specifically about flowers and calendars. Flowers are a kind of calendar, that mark time each year, April through September in upstate New York, from crocus to crysanthamum. How different it is to see flowers in December, like the primrose, in California where my sister lives. I am grateful that I can depend on certain flowers appearing every year to celebrate the month and season. This poem is a small homage to that:

MY CALENDAR

The tulips are pink,
cone flowers yellow,
daisies are white,
the friendliest fellows,
they swell and they bloom
in my garden in June
never too late,
never too soon.

We must pay attention because, like acts in a cabaret, allotted only a brief window, flowers come and go. There’s drama in the natural world, all of it driven by time. 

LETTING GO

Daffodils bloom,
for just a few weeks
the loveliest flowers,
come take a peek-

I hoped they’d last longer,
if only they could. 
I’d ask them to stay,
if I thought that they would,

I'd yell, “Wait!” to daisies,
next in the queue,
but I have to let go
what else can I do?

© Janice Scully 2020

I felt sad writing this poem, thinking of everything I have let go of beyond flowers. But there is always something to look forward to. Some things are as small as a haircut and bigger things like returning to work and school. And so many look forward to deep structural reform and social justice in America.

I hope everyone is healthy. Make sure you stop by to check out what Margaret Simon has in store for Poetry Friday.

13 thoughts on “Always on Time”

  1. I love this perspective, Janice—the flower calendar, and the fact that they always arrive “never too late” and “never too soon.” What a wonderful way to look at life. I will take that with me. Thank you.

  2. Sweet and lovely poems, Janice. I love your idea of a flower calendar. And so true, about the small window of time we can enjoy certain blooms, but it certainly is a lovely way to mark time. I enjoy the dogwoods, azaleas, and daffodils in our yard — all gone now. Sigh.

  3. I love flowers as clocks and nature’s drama…what a fresh way for me to see things. Those friendliest of fellows are my favorite!

  4. Janice,
    I love your melodic honoring of flowers. It is true we could make our calendar by the flowers that are blooming. But my calendar would look very different from yours. Thanks for sharing.

  5. I love your floral calendar poems, Janice! I hadn’t really realized I do mark the passage of time by which flowers I see – daisies are my favorite for being “the friendliest fellows”. 🙂

  6. I love nature and all that it inspires us to notice and record. You are right, it is its own calendar! My garden calendar is marked by daffodils (which I love, just as it seems you do) and the germination of my milkweed before my beloved Monarchs arrive for the summer. By fall, asters and Liatris dot my gardens with purple hues just like the setting sun. Thanks for sharing these lovely visions!

  7. My primroses are blooming profusely now. To have them in December really would be something! I too love the ‘never too late” “never too soon”, Janice. Flowers certainly brighten my days.

  8. Flowers are so fleeting and so filled with beauty–it’s hard letting them go…. Thanks for your flower and calendar ditty poems Janice, I’m so happy to have them beside me during the last few months, and moving into summer.

  9. Janice, I love the lyrical nature of your poems. The rhyming has such a light flow to them and I can see children enjoying them. Thank you for the gift of your June calendar poem for my Nature Nurtures 2020 Gallery.

  11. I agree that the rhythm of the natural world at times is what gives me comfort, and at other times seems relentless…I want a slow down, or a pause, and one never comes.

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