Love Letters to Dolly
1.
I know you’re too close to the bins and their summer-time scent of festering juice.
But you win every time.
Your big, blousy bloom that commands the late afternoon.
2.
Can’t bloom to its fullest without cuts.
Can’t grow to its best without shit.
As a metaphor for life the rose is a pretty good one.
3.
Dolly’s not in it for others.
The days pass, she blooms.
The nights pass, her petals drop.
That in between she’s given such joy to others is incidental.
4.
She was planted so that she could infuse moontime wanders.
Window left ajar.
Her velvet edged blossom softening the night-time terrors.
5.
Somedays it’s hard to figure the boundary between her blood red petals and my blood red fingers.
The yearn to pull her closer falters as my flesh is pulled apart.
6.
It’s not even that she’s persisted. She just is.
7.
At the end of every stem, the reproduction of the world in a single blossom.
A passing glance catches the beauty of her unfurled petals.
A fraction of time passes, a lifetime later.
What once brought beauty now lies scattered on her roots.
Feeding the next bud.
8.
Inside each moment of joy is the imprint of sorrow.
She blooms, then withers.
9.
She’s robust. The catalogue said so.
They didn’t split the word out with a hyphen. They didn’t need to. We all knew.
This rose that lives in a man’s world.
Where the surface becomes the value.
A love letter from Dolly Parton
Secateur Lady:
Enough with the words.
Stardust Becoming 