Bradford Pairs Poem by Jerry Buckley

Bradford Pairs



Staged in horizontal rows: linear like so many Bradford pear trees
Beaming out at us from the 'Society' section of the Sunday newspaper
Complete with full frontal smiles of idealism grafted onto ignorance

'McNeil weds Mullins at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow'
'Thompson and Blakely to say vows in garden ceremony'
'Spencer and Lyons to wed at Second Presbyterian Church'
'Barton and Smith exchange vows at Cheekwood Tea Room'

Don't these lovers read the articles in 'Life' section of the paper?
Have they not spoken with experts in the field; and learned that their odds of survival intact are no more than fifty-fifty at best?
And even if they do survive: that the blooming season is so truncated.
Afterward there's fifty drab weeks, staring over coffee every morning
at a snarling mangle of branches grappling with an overwhelmed trunk

Scenario A discovers the blushing bride cannot be expected to be constrained by such mundane concepts as decorum and property rights; yhat she finds wings on warm breezes and elopes into the wild, to be exposed and recognized by any and all as an invasive pest.

Scenario B reveals that any good thunderstorm or sheer wind past the third year of planting, easily snaps off one of the main branches;
and so the homeowner is wed to an amputee flaying in a chorus line..... And what on earth can you possibly do about that?

'Voice of One'... Jerry Buckley

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
R. G. Bell 26 January 2012

Jerry, We too have Bradford Pear trees here. The most beautiful things about 10 days a year. Boring and fragile the rest, as you obviouly know only too well. This is a fine play on words. Thank you. R. G. Bell

0 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Jerry Buckley

Jerry Buckley

Tennessee, USA
Close
Error Success