A Gift
An enchantment of tulips
graces the ceramic vase.
Over the flow of days
their petals curl and fade,
stems weaken and bow,
elegant in their curved descent.
Then in a final cascading rush,
each flower splays into full blossom,
casting petals upon the table.
A last tender offering.
©Molly Hogan
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Tabatha Yeatts at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference. Be sure to stop by! Tabatha’s posts always leave you with something new to ponder and there are links to other poetic offerings as well.
Nix the comfort zone 
Your beautiful poem captures the movement—often almost a week on my writing table—of whatever flowers appear there and how I watch their process from lively to drooping to fluttering down on the table, always lovely.
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Watching that progression is endlessly fascinating, isn’t it?
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“An enchantment of tulips” — the perfect collective noun! The photos add so much. Beautiful.
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Collective nouns are the best and making up your own is quite entertaining!
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This is such a beautiful poem. I hope you send it in a card with the photo to the gift giver. What a lovely way to say thank you. How did you create the images? You just blow me away sometimes.
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Thanks, Margaret. The images were a gift to me from sun and shadow on the morning of my birthday. I was entranced!
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Lovely! I never thought of a vase of tulips as active before, but now I will. I like all the long a’s in the poem.
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I’ve been buying tulips weekly right now and love watching how they change. It’s also a nice spot of life and color on these cold winter days.
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Molly, those photos! The perspective showing the “casting” of the tulip petals is gorgeous. You have captured beauty in word and image.
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Thanks, Denise! I was so excited when I noticed the petals and shadows. Such a gift!
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*Phwwwwwhh*
That’s the sound of my tulip-whistle of amazement, Molly. Your poetry (and photography) is a gift. 🙂
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Ooohhh…I wish I could have heard that! lol Thanks, Bridget!
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What artistic photos! I have been pressing flowers and making luminaries with them (and using dried plants in wall hangings like the one in my PF logo today) so the “tender offerings” wind up having new lives 🙂
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I’ve always been intrigued by pressing flowers. How do you make luminaries with them? That sounds so beautiful!
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This is my method: https://hearthandvine.com/diy-pressed-flower-luminaria/
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Uh oh! This site is dangerous. I’m now looking at coasters, too! Thanks! (I think! lol)
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Enchantment of tulips! Love it! When is the next writing workshop for adults you are leading? I’ll pay the big bucks.
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Thanks, Dan! Don’t hold your breath, though. lol I’d love to get together when you and Hannah are back from your California wanderings.
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Sounds like a plan to get together come spring. We are in the final four week homestretch here in Carp. If you have any influence in the matter, please arrange for all the snow to be gone from the coast of Maine by the end of March. Your fans, the Softies.
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I wouldn’t count on my efforts! lol I like snow days too much!
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I too love “enchantment” as a collective noun for tulips. Gorgeous photos and poem; couldn’t help thinking the flowers were taking a final bow in the second photo. And the shadows in the photos add another dimension of meaning.
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Thanks, Jama. I really enjoy playing with collective nouns. One summer my husband and I made a game of it. I was particularly fond of a “dizziness of daisies” when we spied a field full of them.
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What a gorgeous ekphrastic offering — I absolutely love the shadows in the image, and the idea that “over the flow of days” there’s such “elegance in their curved descent.” Truly beautiful.
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Thanks, Tanita. I hadn’t even realized this fit with your group poetry prompt for the month!
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Tulips are a brief encounter for me. I like your word enchantment better. It sounds more meaningful and positive but is still brief. I never thought about writing about the flowers that grace my table! My yard – yes. But, not my table. I like the idea very much! Thanks, Molly! Well Done!
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Thanks! I’m intrigued by the idea of tulips as a “brief encounter”.
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I am impressed with the beauty of your poem but also that you watch, as I do, too, the flowers in the vase, and the first ones to lean, and on. I never thought to write about it, Molly. This is lovely, and imagining the “Then in a final cascading rush,”
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Isn’t it amazing how they change from day to day? I’m a little uneasy with those flowers that seem to resist changing, almost in a state of torpor or something. The change is part of the gift.
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Absolutely stunning! Seeing the photograph (yours?)illustrate the poem enhances to gorgeous language. Thank you for this gift.
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Thanks, Linda! I guess I had these pictures in mind (yes, they’re mine) when I wrote, but I didn’t put it all together until I sat down to post 🙂
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Your gift has graced my house, Molly. I shall at the slow movement of the bouquet of flowers waiting for water. You captured the descent of the petals in your stunning photos and poem.
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Thanks, Carol.
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Just perfect, even more so with the artful photos. ❤
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Thanks, Heidi!
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Beautiful! I love everything from the enchantment of tulips to the last tender offering
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Thanks! I especially enjoy watching tulips as they progress from bud to petal dropping.
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Oh, that sacrificial death dive of tulips! Love your photo and poem. That tender ending…
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Thanks, Laura!
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Mmm…and the shadows! And the painted fingertips fallen! Beautiful!
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I loved the contrast of shadows and petals. Glad you did, too!
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Oooh, I love “an enchantment of tulips.” A new collective noun. 🙂
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Love the following of change and movement in your poem- so tied to a tulip’s changing cycle, and very dramatic image too thanks Molly!
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