![\"Midwinter](\"https:\/\/abdul2.rosslynredux.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/img_8384-600x750.jpg\")
I associate amaryllis with the winter holidays. An exotic flower<\/a> for us, gifted when we’re fortunate, and occupying a central and highly visible perch, usually in the kitchen. Not sure why the kitchen except that there’s water handy, and life revolves around the kitchen this time of year, so the progress \u2014 from voluminous bulb to strappy leaves and robust stems to extravagant blooms \u2014 is omnipresent. We comment on the the rising and the unfolding, each time surprised by how much grandeur can explode out of that bursting bulb.<\/p>\n And like so many blooms that we cultivate, that we await and monitor and celebrate, the amaryllis is part of the elusive collection-cum-constellation I’ve been attempting to corral, the ingredients for a home. My home. For homeness. My homeness. What makes a house a home? Well, somewhere high on the list are plants. And this time of year there may be no more regal reminder of how beholden I am to these exuberant houseguests.<\/p>\n Today, I’ll defer to these blooms, a gift from our friend,\u00a0Jennifer\u00a0Isaacson<\/a>, and the words of three poets who’ve grappled with the mysterious amaryllis. I’ll start with the two middle stanzas from Connie Wanek’s “Amaryllis”.<\/p>\n Months ago the gigantic onion of a bulb closed, like hands that captured a moth, Superb! This is the procession of anticipated joys, first small, then larger, then bigger than life.\u00a0From this literal, accessible, potently visual poem of Wanek’s I turn to two separate section in Henri Cole’s “My Amaryllis” that speak to this current journey in ways I can only cite and not explain. Not yet at least. Hopefully soon.<\/p>\n Like my amaryllis, I need a stone in my pot The enigmatic push-pull I’ve been grappling with lately, this relationship with Rosslyn that has outlived our original expectations fourfold and yet that nurtures us and revitalizes us, the recognition that this ballast rights us in heavy seas, buoys us in a storm, this conundrum cloaked in an evening gown simultaneously whisks me off my feet and holds me steady. Where from here?<\/p>\n At present, the where resolves itself by slipping down a few lines to this.<\/p>\n Vain as Picasso, I’ll step aside and let this stand on its own. Well done, Henri Cole!<\/p>\n And for my last point of reference, my final poetic meditation on the enchanting amaryllis, I refer you to “Amaryllis” by Glen Mott<\/a>. Of the three, this poem is at once the most complex and the most intoxicating. I’ll spare Mott my clumsy scalpel, resist the temptation to cull lines that resonate, and instead crib the writer’s observation about the poem.<\/p>\n
\nhalf above the soil
\nstuck out its green tongue
\nand slowly, day by day,
\nthe flower itself entered our world,<\/p>\n
\nthen open, as eyes open,
\nand the amaryllis, seeing us,
\nwas somehow undiscouraged.
\nIt stands before us now…
\n\u2014 Connie Wanek, “Amaryllis” (Source: Poetry Foundation<\/a><\/em>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nas a ballast.
\n\u2014 Henri Cole, “My Amaryllis”\u00a0(Source: The Atlantic<\/a><\/em>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"Midwinter](\"https:\/\/abdul2.rosslynredux.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/img_8385-600x750.jpg\")
\nmechanical as a beetle, I want to make
\na thing I haven\u2019t made that says,
\nLook how he\u2019s evolved.
\n\u2014 Henri Cole, “My Amaryllis”\u00a0(Source: The Atlantic<\/a><\/em>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"Midwinter](\"https:\/\/abdul2.rosslynredux.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/img_8386-600x750.jpg\")
![\"Midwinter](\"https:\/\/abdul2.rosslynredux.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/img_8387-600x750.jpg\")