Orange Blossom

Wandering and wondering where we will welcome warmth to ourselves with our woeful and wanton wanting. Passions possess our path. Longing lingers in our loins in latent lust. Every creature shares the genome to generate offspring and reproduce ourselves which cannot be achieved alone. There are only three primary colours in the world, red, yellow and blue, but when they blend, there is so much more than hue.

Bicolours though are more interesting to me and of them, I count three: orange, purple and green. Without the yellow of the sun and the rains from skies of blue, there would be no growth of green sprouting through. Reds of passion mate with sullen blue for the grief of purple to come shining through. Yet only the yellows of the sun can marry the passionate reds to arrange an orange.

ORANGE

Orange, the lonely word without a rhyme

Or angelic color only flushed red;

Yellow blended bicolor of orange

Mellow friended juice of fruitful exchange;

ooOOoo

Or another friend of purple red blues

Or another friend of green bicolor hues;

Or another friend of red, yellow, blue

Primary colors for eyes to peruse;

OOooOO

A range and spectrum for eyes that amuse

A palette for artists to mix and choose;

Burnt umber earth tone on brushy bristles

Blood red drippings pricked on thorny thistles;

ooOOoo

Or an gentle shade across morning’s sun

Or an gentle fade from sky as day is done;

Or a gnat about your head in summer

Range of orchards yielding fruit for breakfast;

OOooOO

Florida fruit juiced not from concentrate

Ginger headed girls whose hair was never red;

But orange hair sounds better than, say green

Giraffes are orange, more than most have seen;

ooOOoo

African soils are orange, so they say

Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?

Orangutans swing and then run away

Arrange a way to travel to Havana;

ooOOoo

Organic oranges dropping with the breeze

Rolling round astounding ground under trees;

An orange a day keeps the doctor away

Orange skies of sunshine sure beat the gray!

OOooOO

sligobay

© 2011 Gerry Gilligan, (pseudonym- sligobay)

All photos, poems and articles © 2011 Gerry Gilligan

On Mother's Day in May this year, I planted a rose bush beside my mother's grave. I planted an azalea bush beside the grave of my father's Aunt Belinda. I planted another rosebush in a large pot outside my door.

When I visited my parents' grave on the tenth anniversary of my father's death, August 12th, 2011, a single pink rose greeted me. My mother was there in the rose to let me know her presence.

Aunt Belinda sponsored my father's immigration from Ireland and bought him his first suit of clothes when he arrived. Dad loyally looked after Aunt Belinda as he earned the American Dream of success. As she aged, he found a comfortable nursing home where she stayed nearby until she passed at the age of 95. Born in 1884, Aunt Belinda passed in 1979 without having been married or had children of her own. Her brother , John, my grandfather, was a character to be reckoned with. At the age of 84, he was confronted by a neighbor with a question: "John, what age is it that men lose their interest in women?" John chewed on his pipe stem for a bit as he contemplated his answer, or so the story goes.

With a wry smile, he replied. "I really can't tell you an answer. You'll need to ask someone older than me." So, there is hope for me still.

Aunt Belinda's azalea bush was beyond its blossom but happily holding Belinda's earth. Mom's rose was like her smile, bright and full. She rarely wore a frown. Dad and Mom were married for more than fifty years and they remained dedicated to each other for more than half a century. Both Mom and Dad were one and present in the single rose.

The other rosebush planted at home stood in its pot alive but alone. It weathered the heat of the summer; June, July and August, never wanting for water. The opposite was true as it caught the splash from the storm gutter and nearly drowned before I moved the large pot closer to my door.

Winds and torrential downpours of Hurricane Emily lashed at the lonely existence of this thorny life. Two American flags and a semper fi marine flag were added to the pot to lend it colour and flourish on Memorial Day, Forth of July and my father's tenth anniversary. No blossom came as the flags flapped in the arid breezes of summer. No blossom was born as the beetles nibbled on its leaves. No blossom emerged as it weathered the hurricane by its own strength.

The tenth anniversary of my father's death came and went in August without any evidence of a single bud. Another tenth anniversary approached, nine-eleven, as the rosebush drank the sunlight through its beetle-ravaged leaves. The stalk of the rosebush stood erect, at military attention, as it saluted the flags that shared its large pot.

Alone with its company of wooden soldiers, the rosebush sighed in its solitude.

On Sunday morning, the Sabbath, September 11, 2011, the overcast day burst into sunshine at the Memorial Ceremony at the Eagle Rock Reservation Monument erected to the memory of those lost on that fateful day, a decade ago.

Nature knows nothing of the infamy and cruelty of mankind and man's inhumanity toward man. Nature continues its patterns of growth and decomposition uninterrupted by the artificial wars and economic cycles of man. Yet, on that day, a single orange rose blossomed and paid homage to the sorrow of so many. This week, three orange rosebuds joined their mother to keep hope alive.

Orange Blossom

Rest peacefully comrades within

The immortal tomb of our hearts;

Your lives were lost to this world

But your memory enflames our ire;

ooOOoo

Children orphaned by your passing

Left alone without your guidance;

No Little League or Senior Prom

Left to walk alone down the aisle;

OOooOO

Widowed partner without warm love

Lays alone in sobbing darkness;

Soulmate lost, sudden horror

Sorrow now, uncertain tomorrow;

ooOOoo

Rosebud blooms to orange blossom

Petals open with hearts revealed;

Memories grow in grateful hearts

In awe of senseless sacrifice.

sligobay

oooOOOooo

© 2011 Gerry Gilligan,

(pseudonym- sligobay)

All photos, poems and articles © 2011 Gerry Gilligan