A View of I do not like poinsettias

(A poem about my father's memorial service.  His birthday, and the anniversary of his death, are later this month.)

I do not like poinsettias

Those red leaves make me see red, leave me red faced,

like the priest who stood on the altar

apologizing instead of eulogizing,

“I did not know your father… I’m told he was a good man….”
Stammering, straining for words, a man
who knew he would never wear red, stood shamed
by words flailing from his cheeks like injured cardinals.
Flustered red swam with festive red in a sea of charcoal gray;
charcoal gray vestments, charcoal gray chapel
charcoal gray sky that blotted out sun rays straining
to shine through glass stained poinsettia red.
The sky, it seems, did not like poinsettias.

I do not like poinsettias.

I do not like the fake festivity of frost

flocking red leaves. It’s too ashen, too much
like his knuckles. My father’s knuckles were always
ash white, his hands always frosted with ash.
He worked with his hands, worked hard, worked long,
never stopping, never allowing himself a moment
to be soft, to be flushed like the poinsettia petals on that altar.
He fell into the frost, became the frost, was reduced to ash,
but not in time to be embraced by all that poinsettia red.
My father did not wear red, not even when
it was the only thing left for him to wear.
My father, it seems, did not like poinsettias.

I do not like poinsettias.

I do not like the way the petals flutter then fall away,

or the way that red needs to be to be shrouded
from the sun to stay so bright.  It’s too much for too little.
Too much to stay so vivid, like the memory of all those
poinsettias on an altar next to a charcoal shrouded stranger
bringing red faced apologies because our priest,
the parish Father who shared so many Sundays with us
in that charcoal gray chapel couldn’t be there for us
on a Sunday when we so desperately needed him.
He did not know in time, it could not be helped.
It cannot be held against him.

It was not my father’s fault he dove into the depths,

sank into charcoal darkness, shrouded from the sun too long,
flocked with frost when finally found.
He succumbed to the charcoal gray of depression.
It could not be helped. It cannot be held against him.
 
It was no one’s fault my father’s ashes were not ready in time
to be enshrined in poinsettia red in that charcoal gray chapel.
It’s hellish work transforming frost white to ash white
in the fluttering flames of a funeral pyre. I cannot help it.
I hold a grudge against a charcoal gray altar adorned
with the false festivity of poinsettias.
I hold a grudge against fluttering red flame petals.

I do not like poinsettias.

(c) 2011 – Tracey Morris, All Rights Reserved

(Photo taken by John Guarino, December 16, 2009, and posted to his Flickr page.)