"Two Roads Diverged in the Garden Centre...and My Head Exploded."

Poets write about nature.  They have done so since the beginning.  Rare is the scribe who jots down a few lines about the deep feelings he is having as the mortar sets in a wall he is making:


"Grey, in all of your greyness. 
And suddenly, set, like my heart, in a block.
You tumble and crush my foot, 
With more greyness and your unrelenting hardness.
I shriek and curse and apply a salve.
To Emergency I trundle and curse my love for you."


'Not really moved by that. But love, and the surrounds are captivating.  A bird.   A fence.  The eyes of some beauty.  The sounds, the smells and the feelings triggered by such are, if we give ourselves the luxury of unplugging for a while, the same things that move us today as they did our predecessors.  One of the differences though, is access.  I dare you.  I absolutely dare you to walk through a really good garden centre ("John's" south of Uxbridge) and be able to settle on the allure of only one blossom.  Oh sure, it's easy to "think that (you) shall never see a poem lovely as a tree..."  That's one tree Joyce Kilmer is talking about.  But try facing thousands of plants, all within an acre.


The only saving grace, for a poet moved by blossoms or fragrance, is that plants don't all reach their zeniths at the same time.  If they did, you might walk into the middle of the garden centre and, in three seconds, you head would explode. Right now, the Vibernum is  saucing about with a fragrance that is worthy of bragging.  There are a few Rhododendron that are showing off some purple blooms that they've been working on for a while, and off in the "annuals" section, there is a certain Dhalia that is flaunting colours that don't seem real.  That Dhalia.  She is something:


"She sifts the air for what she needs,
And plys it, drawing from the roots,
The canvass; a dress of the greenest leaves.
Upon which she adds a blossom;
The kiss of a colour only your heart knew existed.
Your head knows better and doesn't believe, 
But your heart it feels, and sees the show.
It fills with Dhalia's beauty and wants to die,
For what is left when she is gone?
Nothing, except the missing of her."


But over in another section are some Lupins. Their blossoms are geometric teases; inverted cones of colour, and absolutely worthy of another poem, and of course the Tulips, the exotic Mandavillas, the Foxglove...sensory overload.  


"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveller,
Long I stood"...and packed my car with so many flowers that my head exploded.


Robert Frost might not roll in his grave, but to set him in the middle of such a display would, I'm sure, be a challenge.  Try it yourself. You might want to make a day of it, or maybe two. No cheating.  You must consider each plant, and some plants, like Dhalia, might consider you!