POETRY: Flowers by Guyanese Dennis Craig

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Flowers

Written by Dennis Roy Craig

PHOTO BY TAMIKA POMMELLS WILLIAMS: Flowers grown in the Ahhh! garden by Tamika Pommells Williams.
PHOTO BY TAMIKA POMMELLS WILLIAMS: Flowers grown in the Ahhh! garden in Montego Bay, Jamaica, by Tamika Pommells Williams.

I have never learnt the names of flowers.

From beginning, my world has been a place

Of pot-holed streets where thick, sluggish gutters race

In slow time, away from garbage heaps and sewers

Past blanched old houses around which cowers

Stagnant earth. There, scarce green thing grew to chase

The dull-grey squalor of sick dust; no trace

Of plant save few sparse weeds; just these, no flowers.

One day, they cleared a space and made a park

There in the city’s slums; and suddenly

Came stark glory like lighting in the dark,

While perfume and bright petals thundered slowly.

I learnt no names, but hue, shape and scent mark

My mind, even now, with symbols holy.

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DENNIS CRAIG born in 1929 died in 2004.Photo by Nouhailler

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3 Comments

  2. What is The intention of the poet?

  3. Dennis Craig was Guyanese. He lived and worked in Jamaica at the University of the West Indies for many years, but never, to the best of my knowledge, became a Jamaican citizen.

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