BLEEDING HEARTS

Bleeding heart

Bleeding Hearts

On the neglected left side of the house
far from the showy beds of peonies
and iris, gladiolus and lilies,
the perennial drip of white from rose
valentine-ish hearts went on, undisturbed
by a lack of attention, unperturbed
by cuttings, divisions, replanting fuss
or the disdain of annuals primping
for a one-vase-stand, post-teatime limping,
they simply bloomed and bloomed, standing guard each
Spring over the hens and chicks once planted
at their feet to crowd out all unwanted
competition, avoid future weeding,
like delicate strings of paper lanterns,
soft pink light crucial to growing patterns
of the Sempervivum (always alive,
Latin for that common succulent flock,
ignored, but there, steady as the tick-tock
of purpose just beyond the grasp of men
yearning for control they only know how
to abuse in the shady here and now),
accident or plan, gentle harmony.
Whose hand was it first rent the innocent
pendant to make it bleed? By whose judgment
is sympathy unwarranted, wasted,
an inclination to compassion ruled
a shameful fault of the easily fooled?
Assumed dominion of a third party
cannot prevent the blamed from turning feral
when life requires freedom ephemeral.
Neither flower nor heart, no permission
needed to care about the neglected,
no emotion spare, unearned, rejected.

(Marthe G. Walsh)

Sempervivum or houseleek

A lovely poem by my friend Marthe.

Images from Wikipedia here and here.