May is a month for flowers. Last week sunflowers. Today, gladiolas. My friend Mary brought me a full bouquet with a variety of colors.
I am following Georgia Heard’s calendar and on Sunday, the topic was “what quiet sounds like.”
An ode is a poem of praise. I was also inspired by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater’s Ode to Seeds “Seedsong” from Poetry Friday.
Ode to Glads
Oh, the silence
in your lavender
touched by white
laced around a tall stalk.
It’s hard to believe
how you grow
perfectly perched
upon the soil,
now delighting
my kitchen table
with joyful obedience.
I love you.
Margaret Simon, draft
Please join me in writing a small poem of praise about May flowers. Leave your poem in the comments and support other writers with encouraging words.
Reflections on the Teche 
What a beautiful gladiola, Margaret. Love “the silence in your lavender” and “perfectly perched.” I’m intrigued with your choice to italicize two lines – they sound just right when read together. I wrote this in response to Georgia’s prompt “a scent from long ago.”
Peonies
I need only inhale your sweet scent
and I am again seven years old,
marching in the May procession
in my First Communion dress.
Oh, so sweet. Don’t you love those deep memories around good smells and events. This is just a lovely memory.
I love the memory you shared. The italics are lines I took from Amy LV.
Margaret, I love this photo and poem and the sweet phrase “joyful obedience”, which I picture the gladiolus standing at attention like soft flowing nutcrackers. I had to write about the flowers here in Seattle, so different than mine in the desert. Sometimes I look outside her window and see the ground white with rhododendron petals.
Joyful Obedience
of the peony,
the rhododendron, and
all the joys with names
I don’t know–
Here’s to
Seattle’s May
flowers bursting
in joyful obedience
to their seed-song.
But also to the exhaling
of their extravagance–
excessive rainbow flakes,
petals soon scattered–
prodigal delight.
There’s nothing as beautiful as Seattle flowers. My brother in law lives there. We went in May of 22 for my niece’s wedding. A lovely praise poem!
Beautiful, Denise! May flowers are special everywhere, I imagine.