Pink
When daylight darkens
my mind drops down
to the pink tulip bulb
that I buried in November
as a remedy for winter
come spring
Shown on the package
to be as pink as the tulip
in the white framed photograph
that hung on my mother’s
bedroom wall
that she wanted to fit in my suitcase
after I told her that I liked it
that I took from her house
when she died
It was a single delicate bloom
with pale open petals
like listening ears
or a hopeful heart
surprised
Not like the pink blow-up raft
that I wanted to carry me
gently down the stream
like a baby in a cradle
not left to sink or swim
Not like the poodle skirt
of pink quilted satin
that came wrapped in tissue paper
in a department store box
But rosy like a girl’s cheek
playfully pinched
while writing in her diary
about a boy she wants to like her
A newborn pink
with no choice but to trust
planted and pulled up
only wanting to be cherished
A perennial pink
that blushes in the spring
that loves the sun but misses the dirt
that wants to come back every year
_________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United /dVerse Poets Pub
December 6th, 2020 4:08 pm
This pink is all love and sweet memories. I’m charmed by the nostalgia evoked and hope for a future filled with more pink to love.
December 6th, 2020 7:18 pm
A soft and gentle poem, a beautiful read!
December 6th, 2020 9:54 pm
Being Dutch I love tulips but now I feel more intimate with that pink tulip reading your poem With that rosy, new born ..pink. Lovely poem
December 7th, 2020 2:00 am
What a glorious poem in pink this is.
December 7th, 2020 6:06 am
How absolutely beautiful and sweetly tender.
December 7th, 2020 12:53 pm
I love how your poem turns the pink flower into so many things, how it maps its looks and the emotions it blooms into being. There is so much tenderness in the mother’s gesture of giving and in the daughter’s gesture of later taking… And the final lines sing a song of pure bittersweet hope to me: that wanting can grow into all sorts of wonderful.
December 8th, 2020 3:05 am
so many emotions in the different shades of pink.
an absolutely beautiful poem. i really like the ‘newborn’ pink. yes, no choice but to smile and trust.
December 9th, 2020 6:09 am
A beautiful beautiful pink poem, soft, gentle and absolutely gorgeous.
Anna :o]
December 9th, 2020 7:01 am
A newborn pink
with no choice but to trust – that’s so pretty!
December 11th, 2020 7:30 am
Such a touching poem, Colleen. Tulips are my favourite flowers, in all their different colours. I love the shape of them, like turbans. What touches me so much about your poem is the connection between the pink tulip and the memory of your mother, and that it is ‘a remedy for winter / come spring’. Tulips certainly are a remedy. My favourite lines are:
‘It was a single delicate bloom
with pale open petals
like listening ears
or a hopeful heart
surprised’.
Beautiful.
December 11th, 2020 9:16 am
Oh so beautiful – all those petal pink memories! Thank you for sharing.
December 11th, 2020 9:50 am
This opens a solemn portal into deep memory right from the outset:
“When daylight darkens
my mind drops down”
This is so wonderful bringing us down into that dark hidden spot where the new life is waiting and old memories rise up also to greet the sun. I was cultrually proscribed from wearing pink, so ridiculous that boys can’t like pink, especially when that boy was a girl, I find it at turns soft or blazing, that tulip can turn out to be either the gentle petal or our dear Plath’s ravenous beast. in either case it lives beautifully. Here is to coming back every year! Cheers!
December 11th, 2020 1:53 pm
That tulip will be like a keepsake that brings with it memories each time it returns.
December 11th, 2020 4:30 pm
Your poem sang to me … pink, in the most perfect shade.
December 11th, 2020 5:52 pm
I really like how you used pink as the vehicle to build a world of memories. Like this but not like this gives it a lyrical feel.
December 11th, 2020 8:17 pm
I love especially
A newborn pink
with no choice but to trust
planted and pulled up
only wanting to be cherished
Colors are so evocative.
December 11th, 2020 9:18 pm
But rosy like a girl’s cheek
playfully pinched
while writing in her diary
about a boy she wants to like her
All those moments of innocence brought back to rekindle fond memories. How nice Colleen!
Hank
December 13th, 2020 11:47 am
I love how you make that pink so precise… the part of the picture from your mother’s wall especially touched me.
December 13th, 2020 2:22 pm
I am literally swooning right now 😀 especially love; “But rosy like a girl’s cheek playfully pinched while writing in her diary about a boy she wants to like her.”??
December 14th, 2020 6:51 pm
All the memories–and hopes–that the planting of a tulip evokes. I love how the stanzas/memories flow.
I hope the pink tulip blooms.
We planted more and extra daffodils this year–like planting hope and beauty for the spring.