MOCK ME WITH YOUR FLOWERS
H. W. Bryce
You mock me with your flowers,
Your Yuccas and Aagapanthas,
While we at home here on the now
Dark side of the earth are chilled
By icy winds and sluggish rain and
Snow and sloppy slurry. Oh! To keep
The summer here to warm the heart
And soul. But our flowers are dead.
The leaves have deserted and still
We must smile and put a face on
To keep our spirits up.
And you mock us with your flowers!
You with your spectacular Silver Princess,
Your red kangaroo paws, your orchids!
And us with our dead dandelions and daisies,
And our freezing feet and can’t sleep.
If there be any justice left in this cruel
World, you would go colour blind in
Your garden of precious Aussie gem flowers.
But no! You have to send us pictures while
We struggle through the snow drifts, half
Blind from the single whiteness of our
Winter world. You mock us with your flowers!
— —
When I worked in Ontario at the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto, and at the Hamilton Spectator in, oddly enough, Hamilton, also in Ontario, British Columbia persistently sent us spectacular photos of fields of tulips in February and/or March while we trudged through six feet of snow to work every day. They mocked us with their flowers and snickered in their sleeves.
But we could cheer when BC got a rare blizzard and all their cars spun out. Ha Ha. I mock you with my laughter.
And now, here I am in holiday land and our Province’s orchard country gets snow. Two days before the first day of Spring. Hmmm.
Snow in our desert swath in the northern Okanagan Valley. Snow in Alberta, our neighbouring province to the East. Snow! Lots of snow. At the first day of Spring! Just at the end of our cherry blossom season! Snow!!
Image by Linus Schütz from Pixabay
