POETRY FORUM

Lesser Flowers

by Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia June 14, 2023 1 comment

The lesser known flowers
The low growing weeds
inspire in me
tenderness.

Bouquets of shameless market roses
Bold lilies in cellophane
Are revolting
Pathetic are the hostesses
Arranging them in vases
In carpeted drawing rooms.

A child walked to school
Picking dandelions and grass florets
Bunching them in a small fist
With sweet scented clover
A posy for a teacher
With kind eyes
And a ready smile.

For the Lord of Heaven
I shall carry only Earth’s weeds
And if He does not smile
I’ll weep for all eternity.

editors note:

We call ’em weeds only when we don’t want ’em. – mh clay

Comments 1

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amitasarjitahluwalia
June 14, 2023 at 2:33 pm

Thank you for the feature and the editorial comment.
I agree that we only call flowers weeds when we don’t like them.

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A bit about Amita: Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia is one of the pen names used by Punjab-born, Oxford-and-Harvard-educated, Patna-based, retired Indian bureaucrat, Amita Paul, for her original writings in different genres, but mostly poetry, in English, Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi, featured and forthcoming in various anthologies, journals, and online poetry writing forums.

Amita was awarded the NISSIM International Poetry Award (First Prize) for 2019, for Excellence in Writing and her contribution to Indian English Poetry. In 2020, the TSL Jury announced the award of the First Reuel International Prize for non–fiction to her for her experimental prose and multi – media anthology, ‘The Saaqi Chronicles.’ Destiny Poets, an International Community of Poets, based in England, declared her their Poet of the Year 2020, and Critic of the Year 2020, repeated in 2022, as well.

Amita’s poem ‘View From A Porthole,’ was acclaimed at the National Poetry Writing Month Hub in April 2021, while her poem ‘Not Amused’ was similarly honoured in April 2022, and her rollicking sea-shanty ‘The Sailor, the Sea and May McRoy,‘ in April 2023. The Women Empowered Group and Yugen Quest Review honoured her as a WE Green Heart for 2020 and ‘21 for her ecologically conscious poetry influenced by Nature.