Poem: Hothouse Flowers

Hothouse Flowers

The flowers were grown in the greenhouse,
their blooms vibrant
months before their cousins outside
will open and show their color.

You enjoy their fragile beauty,
aware that they could not survive
outside, where it is still winter
no matter what the calendar might say,

where piles of snow rise high
along street banks,
and the Vermont wind turns frigid
each night.

You breath deeply the hothouse air,
moist and too warm for the season.
You feel sweat on your chest.
The stickiness of your clothes is uncomfortable,

stifling, and part of you wants to leave,
to go outside where the air is brisk and real,
but you tarry, longer than you had planned,
your eyes soaking in the color,

remembering it like love,
it's memory carrying you
until the change of seasons
comes.

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The picture was taken at the Mettowee Mill Nursery in Dorset, VT, in one of their greenhouses. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom