In My Grandparents’ Garden

Love in a mist

made me pause in perplexity
at the blueness of its petals
and its name, Nigella— who was she
to give her name to such beauty?
I delighted in the saucer-shaped flowers
a ruff of feathery foliage round their throats,
which became pretty seeds to collect
in a used vellum airmail envelope,
ready to plant next year.

Peony

pink peony
opened to the touch of sun
bashful geisha’s lips

I gathered petals
silky frills of deep cerise
my secret friends

fading on dry soil
haven of childhood summers
my watering can

Honesty

In springtime, I would marvel for hours
at a crowd of white and purple flowers.

Eventually the pretty petals perished,
turned into brown oval parcels, relinquished

to the wind that peeled off their wrapping
and revealed a crowd of honest gleaming

moons, translucent, papery, nearly white
Judas coins with an eerie silver light.

At Christmas time, they would return
inside, cut and dried in a cut-glass urn

while outside, at the end of the garden,
they became rattling winter skeletons.

 Night-scented stock

I remember evenings
at the scullery door inhaling
the lasting beauty
of those loose sprays
of white flowers, stars bursting
among ghostly, grey-
green leaves.

Kim M. Russell, 19th April 2026

Me picking up peony petals

On the nineteenth day of April, the optional NaPoWriMo prompt is a flowery one, inspired by the word florilegium, a book of botanical illustrations of decorative plants and also a collection of excerpts from other writings.  “In her poem, ‘Florilegium’, Canadian poet Sylvia Legris gathers together many five-lined stanzas that describe flowers but also play with the sounds of their names, their medical (or poisonous) qualities, and historical aspects of herbalism.”

Our challenge is to pick a flower or two from the online edition of Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers and write poems in which we muse on our selections’ names.

12 thoughts on “In My Grandparents’ Garden”

  3. Lush! Thank you for a tour of your grandparents’ garden Kim. Love this Haiku

    I gathered petals
    silky frills of deep cerise
    my secret friends

    and the photo that goes with it.

    What an absolute delight it was to visit your page today. Thank you 🙂

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  5. I like the attention to detail. Each poem is rooted in close observation, which gives the sequence a sense of lived familiarity. We’re in your grandparents’ garden.

    Love in a Mist and Peony are excellent, but Honesty stands out for me because of its structural confidence. The progression from flower to seed to dried arrangement to winter skeletons is clear and well handled. We have them in our garden and I found myself nodding in recognition all the way through.

    Lines like “honest gleaming / moons” and “Judas coins with an eerie silver light” give Honesty a strong visual identity, while the rhyme carries the feeling of transformation without intruding. like close observation and well crafted rhymes so you’re on a winner with me.

    Oh, nearly forgot. Night-scented Stock is the right stopping point. The emphasis on scent and evening atmosphere is an appropriate and effective end to a day in the garden.

    My highest respect, though, is for the way you’ve delivered a consistent theme using different approaches for each flower: narrative, compressed lyric, structured reflection, and atmospheric vignette. That’s difficult to achieve and you did it with style.

    Thanks for sharing these.

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      1. Thanks. I realised after I’d posted that I’d got carried away. In my defence, that’s a sign that I’ve really engaged with a poem. A roundabout way of saying I thought these poems were excellent. 👍

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