Page 2 Lonely Hollyhock
______________________________________________
Alone she stands with flowers blood red.
One hollyhock with head held high.
Alone in a rocky, pebbled bed
the queenly flower looks toward the sky.
Her one majestic spike so fine
so tall and proud for all to see.
On sweetest nectar, here do dine
the hummingbird and honeybee,
sharing her beauty and her grace,
safe in the shelter of her love.
Here in this unlikely place
with earth below and sky above.
Selfishly we dug her up.
Tenderly we took her home.
New friends we thought with her would sup.
The birds and bees that here do roam.
Our gentle care and love we thought
would surely please her, make her grow
strong in her soft, warm, rich new bed.
We were foolish, did not know
her loneliness, nor her disgrace.
She could not hold her head up high.
Her life belonged in another place.
Transplanted here she would droop and die.
We must take her back and let her be
in her hard and native soil
where she is queen and bird and bee
every day around her toil.
With the sky above and earth below
in her rough, unlikely place
with her head held high again she'll grow
majestically and full of grace.
Alone she will stand with flowers blood red.
Where she belongs, she lives and grows.
Secure in her pebbled rocky bed.
Safe among all that she loves and knows.
_______________________________________
poem & sketch by Joy Cenicola page 3
|