Grasp Pluck A Flower Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

If my hand
were to reach out
grasp pluck a flower

to symbolize
a life concept,
what flower

would it be?

Be it possible
token taken
would achieve
immortality?

What value
the token?
What matter
the choice?

To be immortalized
dramatically in a play
the choice of a flower
scene in a churchyard!

Really, image an apocryphal
scene in the Temple Garden?

What flower do you choose?


With a life's struggle bursting
out from between the two lines,

English blood will slay English blood
in a series of deadly dynastic civil wars

fought in several, spasmodic battles
for a prize, for the throne of England.

How choose you? What say you now?
Be it the white rose? Be it the red rose?

Be ye for the White Rose of York?
Be ye for the Red Rose of Lancaster?

Your decision bore thirty years of war
for the pick of different coloured roses;
at the Temple Church, the banner of a
white boar, or red dragon to die under.

Was the choice of a rose of importance;
after the last battle was won? Henry VII
will combine the white and red roses; into
single red and white Tudor Rose; to found

the House of Tudor; to rule England and Wales;
for 117 years; to end these; Wars Of The Roses.


In beautiful images of nature,
framed also in cultural images,

so much may be achieved, in golden years,
saved, from wise lesson values of the past.


Copyright © Terence George Craddock