Unplanted

A poem and rambling about potential

I wrote this poem this morning.

I noticed this packet of bulbs on a shelf and immediately felt insanely guilty for failing to plant them.

It wasn’t so much that I regretted the chance to see them flower myself, but rather what they would have potentially meant to others - from dog walkers to ladybirds. And also, my mum who had given them to me. Did that make me ungrateful?

I then started reflecting upon how this translates to humans. The way many of us sit as unplanted bulbs, yet have such opportunity to make more of our lives.

It’s interesting how growth is so often considered on a individual level. People talk about reaching their potential in terms of benefits to themselves - monetary reward, health gains, success in love etc

But reaching our peak - being all we can be -positively impacts upon the wider world, doesn’t it?

It’s hard to convey this point without going down a road of social responsibility and collectivism which I’m not on board with. I do not agree with people doing things to contribute because they ‘owe’ society.

I think with the exception of our children whom we brought here, or pets we take on willingly, we owe no-one anything. Life is not an accountant’s book of black and red, debits and credits. It’s bollocks. We all know people who receive more than they ever give and vice versa.

Rather than concentrating on what we ‘owe’, is it not better to think of our potential as a gift to distribute with love? I feel way more comfortable of the concept of myself as a chunked up glistening melon on a tropical beach to be willingly shared, than a debt to be paid.

It’s a much better notion isn’t it?

Unplanted

.

Today I found some tulip bulbs

Supposed to plant them in November

Could’ve had some purple soon

If I’d bothered to remember

Suffering in plastic wrap

Green shoots clamouring for light

Oblivious to their obvious trap

Unable to transcend their plight

I contemplate the halted stems

Hemmed in envelopes of hell

Never knowing rays of May

Imprisoned in square packet cell

Lost russet pops, flamingo frocks

Tissue paper teasing breeze

The copper mops that brown bees suck

Extracting all they can to please

Some queen who doesn’t give a toss

Of flagging wings, legs giving way

Fed and fat, she knows no loss

Another dead, another day

Bud if you can; bewitch, enchant

Draw cabbage whites and dragon flies

Be bridge for every stumbling ant

Spring leaks in cracks of dry-well eyes

A wasted chance to be our best

Does not just stifle our own flower

But every lacewing needing rest

Each hornet passing to repower

We can be breath that pauses death

The nectar that fills many a mouth

Unless we choose a darkened room

To rot, a bulb in someone’s house.