Meanwhile, somewhere in the state of Colorado, armed to the
teeth with thousands of flowers,
two boys entered the front door of their own high school and
for almost four hours
gave floral tributes to fellow students and members of the
staff
beginning with red roses strewn among unsuspecting pupils
during their lunch hour,
followed by posies of peace lilies and wild orchids.
Most thought the whole show was one elaborate hoax using
silk replicas of the real thing, plastic imitations, exquisite practical jokes,
but the flowers were no more fake than you or I,
and were handed out as compliments returned, favors repaid,
in good faith, straight from the heart.
No would not be taken for an answer.
Therefore a daffodil was tucked behind the ear of a boy in a
baseball hat,
and marigolds and peonies threaded through the hair of those
caught on the stairs or spotted along corridors
until every pupil who looked up from behind a desk could
expect to be met with at least a petal or a dusting of pollen,
if not an entire daisy chain, or the color-burst of a dozen
foxgloves, flowering for all their worth, or a buttonhole to the breast.
Upstairs in the school library, individuals were singled out
for special attention:
some were showered with blossom, others wore their blooms
like brooches or medallions;
even those who turned their backs or refused point-blank to
accept such honors were decorated with buds,
unseasonable fruits and rosettes the same as the others.
By which time a crowd had gathered outside the school,
drawn through suburbia by the rumor of flowers in full
bloom, drawn through the air like butterflies to buddleia,
like honey bees to honeysuckle, like hummingbirds dipping
their tongues in,
some to soak up such over-exuberance of thought, others to
savor the goings-on. Finally, overcome by their own munificence or hay fever,
the flower-boys pinned the last blooms on themselves,
somewhat selfishly perhaps,
but had also planned further surprises for those who swept
through the aftermath of bloom and buttercup:
garlands and bouquets, planted in lockers and cupboards,
timed to erupt either by fate or chance, had somehow been overlooked and missed
out.
Experts are now trying to say how two apparently quiet kids
from an apple-pie town could get their hands on a veritable rain-forest
of plants and bring down a whole botanical digest of one
species or another onto the heads of classmates and teachers,
and where such fascination began, and why it should lead to
an outpouring of this nature.
And even though many believe that flowers should be kept in
expert hands only, or left to specialists in the field such as florists,
the law of the land dictates that God, guts and gardening
made the country what it is today
and for as long as the flower industry can see to it things
are staying that way.
What they reckon is this: deny a person the right to carry
flowers of his own
and he’s liable to wind up on the business end of a flower
somebody else had grown.
As for the two boys, it’s back to the same old debate:
is it something in the mind that grows from birth, like a
seed, or is it society that makes a person that kind?
1. What is literally happening in the poem? What are the events? Use quotes to prove you are correct.
2. Video
3. What words in the poem should have tipped us off? Are there any hints?
4. This poem asks a question at the end. It is powerful. Why? How does the question lead us to the theme? What is the theme of this poem, then, and why ?
