Each green patch
has a turn to bloom
and stage its three-act opera.
Glorious song spills
out in long curls of color.
First the clear,
unspoiled ingenue’s
high soprano lilts
before time deepens it
into full-blown beauty,
even as the crone
waits in the wings,
ready to bring balance
to summer’s music.
Birth, bloom, balance.
The eternal three-act opera:
each moment a starring role.
Color is music to my eyes.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: The garden’s a miracle of blooms from spring to fall. I enjoy them all. Happy Poetry Friday, and thanks to Doraine Bennett at Dori Reads for hosting this week. Stop by for a garden of poetry.
42 thoughts on “Turn to Bloom”
Comments welcome!
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Friendly Fairy Tales 
This took a lot of imagination to picture a lay in three acts. I loved it due to the theatricality!
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Thanks, Robin. I’m glad the metaphor worked for you.
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Bloom and balance ~Lovely images for the summertime here, Brenda 🙂
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Thanks, Christy B!
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Your poem is “music to my eyes”, Brenda!
I love the line: “high soprano lilts” – I know that bloom! =)
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Thanks, Bridget! I’m so glad my metaphor worked. 🙂
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This is such a lovely metaphor and beautifully presented. I love the internal rhyme. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Enjoy your garden.
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Thanks, Dori.
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I love love LOVE this! Your last three lines are giving my heart a hug. As we get closer to that third act, it’s good to remember the whole play!
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It is good to remember that you are still a star.
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I love this image. I have reached the age where I have taught longer than some of the teachers at my school have been alive. I often look around and think, “How did I get this old? I don’t feel this old…” Three-act-opera puts such a lovely spin on it! Thank you!
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We need the balance our elders and grandparents bring. You are the wise woman, the guider, the sage.
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“Color is music to my eyes.”
Well said! I’ll attend that opera in any garden I find.
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Yay! I’ll be there in spirit.
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Just wonderful. I hope you are all better by now, or close to it.
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Closer than before. I’m still in dresses. 🙂
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So lovely, Brenda – and now I raise a glass of wine to my own summer garden, its blooms fill my heart with such joy.
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A toast to summer, long may it blooms.
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Beautiful, Brenda. You have azaleas blooming?! Our only flower at the beginning of the summer. Our showiest plant right now is the Rose of Sharon — a favorite of the local hummingbird.
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This is an older photo from June, perhaps. Took awhile to think of a poem for it. 🙂 I love the rose of sharon, too. I planted three of different colors to grow together, but so far I haven’t gotten one blossom.
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Working with horticulture scientists all the time I’m not used to such a poetic approach to the bloom cycle — love it!
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Thanks! It came from my channeling my inner crone. I feel like all three stages, ingenue, full bloom and crone are always there.
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You were right about great minds…this is very nice! Although yours is much happier and colorful. 😉 I especially like the song “spilling out in curls of color.”
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No one does angst like a new adult. 🙂
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Just beautiful, Brenda! But I must confess, with the summer coming to an end and my kids back in school, sometimes I feel like that crone waiting in the wings. 😉
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I have been channeling my inner crone since I started a new job, had surgery two weeks later and have my kids home with me all summer. Plus we are in VT. I’m exhausted every night.
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Brenda, I love the way I always have this sense of tenderness in each of your poems. You are certainly the gentle tender of words in your garden of poetry!
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What a nice comment. Thank you!
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Your gardening (and your garden) leaves me in awe. So many flowers, blooming through your collection of poems.
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They aren’t all my garden. I find them near the sidewalk on my walks. 🙂
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Birth, bloom, balance — lovely!
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Thanks, Tabatha!
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Just as your words…music to my ears! How beautifully you write Brenda! 🙂
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Thank you!
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Even as the crone waits in the wings…..my fear now has a name and an M.O. Brilliant image.
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What is M.O. Brilliant?
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encore!
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Yes!
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Birth, bloom, balance a lovely way to go through our lives.
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I think so, too. 🙂
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I love the image of songs, that arc of a three act opera in the blooms, including that crone. Lovely to contemplate as we approach that bow at the end.
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Thanks, Linda! I appreciate your words very much.
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