Member Poem

Deep Pink, the package claimed and photographed
our dream of gladiola sprays. We mapped
three dozen bulbs around our pastel plots
as complements, we thought, to bright-eyed phlox,
petunias, asters, salvia and mums
and contrasts to the brooding firs we’d come
to love. But amateurs miss facts: bees
are un-enamored of this color scheme
and weak-kneed hummingbirds whir by
thumbing wings at pinks and blues and whites.  
We’d only half a natural world until
some mischief rescued our design. It filled
our yard with orange glads in mid-July,
then shrugged with birds and bees, So labels lie.

Carolyn Martin