Memories Of Amaryllis

Red Amaryllis 3, 6 x 6 in. oil on museum quality panel, ©2012, Fay Terry

I am watering my newly planted bulbs in great anticipation of having more gorgeous blooms like this one from last year. My mother always had Amaryllis blooming in December when I was growing up which is probably one reason they are so dear to my heart.
 I am so in love with these flowers and I recently came across a poem that I liked by Connie Wanek.  I hope you will like it too.

Amaryllis

A flower needs to be this size

to conceal the winter window,

and this color, the red

of a Fiat with the top down,

to impress us, dull as we've grown.

Months ago the gigantic onion of a bulb

half above the soil

stuck out its green tongue

and slowly, day by day,

the flower itself entered our world,

closed, like hands that captured a moth,

then open, as eyes open,

and the amaryllis, seeing us,

was somehow undiscouraged.

It stands before us now

as we eat our soup;

you pour a little of your drinking water

into its saucer, and a few crumbs

of fragrant earth fall

onto the tabletop.