NaPoWriMo Day 11: The language of flowers

Hi, I’m doing NaPoWriMo on napowrimo.net. The challenge is to write a poem a day in April. For Day 11, the prompt was to write about flowers, where they have specific meanings.

This is the prompt for the April 11 poem:

The Victorians were particularly ga-ga for giving each other bouquets that were essentially decoder-rings of meaning. For today, I challenge you to write a poem in which one or more flowers take on specific meanings. And if you’re having trouble getting started, why not take a gander at this glossary of flower meanings (Language of flowers)?

The language of flowers

He sent daffodils in the spring light to show his regard,

Their upturned faces two tones of delicate silken yellow,

Petals perched on stalks of dark green tied with twine.

Their horns smelt not sweet but of her father’s meadows

And the dry, brown earth before the onslaught of rain.

The girl returned his favour with water lilies, pureness of heart.

A wooden stile straddled the mid-point of their father’s lands,

Where the two young people could meet, but it was brief

For summer blew the scent of dead leaves across the fields.

Her father died and the farm was sold, her mother tied by a promise

To remarry while her widow’s threads were barely two months old,

The dismal perfumes of harebell and marigold still fresh upon her.

For the young couple, yellow tulips captured their hopelessness.

The distance would prove too great and the girl’s dowry too small,

Now the habits of her mother’s new husband poured it all away.

The lad remarried in time to a lady from the neighbouring town.

The girl later did the same, burying a husband within three springs,

Their only child the following summer – a time of blood-red roses.

The woman’s house on the hill came to stink of cypress and mandrake.

Thereon she chose to live alone, sharing her life with the fairer sex,

Her visitors always greeted by a vase of daffodils, faces turned to the sun.

In hope of better luck, she plaited Holly Herb and Enchanter’s Nightshade

While curing her heartache with crushed cranberries. So time passed,

And gradually she swept the stench of dead leaves off her porch.

In the final quarter of their lives the couple would meet again,

He still bearing the hue and marigold of three years in mourning;

A wretchedness she understood, having endured its eternal cloak.

Whether they met by enchantment or design, neither would know.

This time he would leave a single Gnelder rose on her doorstep.

Now the summer of their lives had passed, it held winter’s hope.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 11, 2020

The meanings of the flowers from Language of flowers:

Cranberry – a cure for heartache

Daffodils – regard

Water lilies – pure of heart

Harebell and Marigold – grief

Dead leaves – melancholy

Gnelder rose – winter/age

Yellow tulips – hopelessness

Holly Herb and Enchanter’s Nightshade are used for witchcraft/enchantment

Cypress – death and mourning

Mandrake – horror