Tulip

You seemed to be born blind.
At first in a chipped pot, in frosted compost,
your leaves pined – jaded limp swords.
Fingering in, I could find no core,
nothing that might bloom.
 

So we passed the days.
You grew lankier with the light,
But still, unpromising.
Until I thought a slit of pink discernible,
where your heart might be.
 

I allowed no hope, only acceptance
that you were to be nothing at all.
But, through those barren days, you persisted.
Threw up, one morning, a wavering stem,
balancing on the head, a bud.
 

The cold returned. The Spring was false
dawn to newly returned swallows.
Early celandines hid their premature suns.
But your stems, veering like snakes uncoiling
half-blind, sought the light, insistent.
 

Last Wednesday it was. I stepped outside to find
a pair of fires, two fires or stars of fire – you flamed
sudden and shockingly scarlet – waxed petals flung wide
open – and your heart nothing timid but bristling black
round the tiniest triune sun.
 

Helen T Curtis

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