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May 31, 2016

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Photography, Poetry

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Columbine Divine

 

Pink and White Double Columbine

Rosy-hued curls, arranged in whirls,
remind me of a clock, stopped.

The minute hand is stuck at twelve.
The hour hand spins too fast to see.

Time has come and gone,
fled when I wasn’t looking.

Now Columbine blooms while
the red queen dances in between.

Alice-tall, Alice-small,
I don’t see Alice at all.

The cheshire cat is grinning
even as my head is spinning

like the hour hand unseen.
Time is measured by kids’ height,

and mine are grown like Alice,
ten feet tall added one and all.

Do I add them head to head or
foot to foot? Or do I let them grow

without any measurement at all?
If time were in these fleeting blooms,

it would always come round again,
we just can’t be sure exactly when.

Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham

Note: I’ve been ill and reading too much poetry. When I woke this morning, the whole world was spinning. My words are spinning, too, it seems. Here’s a song that makes me enjoy the sensation, even as time seems to spin backwards:

36 thoughts on “Columbine Divine”

  1. They do look a bit like clocks, such pretty pink flowers too!! 🙂 I love the ‘Alice’ dream-like/time feel to this whole poem, very good and absolutely timely! I hope you’re feeling better now…not too much spinning I hope?

    I’m thrilled you shared the original music, I had no idea that was an old song, never heard it before. And there was me thinking they wrote it for Pink to sing in the movie! 😀

    I shall be turning into a kid again on Thursday when I go to see the new Alice movie…love Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter…can’t wait!! Have you seen it yet?

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  2. I liked this poem with homage to Alice, elements of Wonderland. I also felt that my children would be lovely to keep young at all times, but once their children appeared, I changed my mind and love each as they are!
    Brenda, my girls who have liked J. Depp since young say his French partner and co-parent of children says he never would hit a woman. Since she has nothing to gain (as Amber Heard may have) she seems to be a credible witness to Depp’s behavior. I will keep hoping.
    My DIL, Skyler, Lara, Landen, Marley, Kyah and baby Hendrix and I went to see this second film. 🙂 On our walk home, others heading off with DIL, 11 year old Sky said this was a “lighter movie” and “happier ending than the first one.” I like Tim Burton but he may put a darker slant on his directing. (?) Skyler noticed the Cheshire Cat wasn’t as “scary.” 🙂

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  11. Wonderful. You capture both the feeling of being dizzy and the dizziness that comes when we see our children suddenly growing upwards and beginning to leave childhood behind.

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