Mosi oa Tunya Review Issue #3

At the market and masked,
none of us breathe deep.
Muzzled and muffled,
we recycle our own stale air
instead of stopping…
Stopping to smell.
Stopping to suck
the sweet scent of bunched flowers
harvested from the farm,
plucked from the garden.
AT THE
MARKET
LIN BARRIE
Flowers are livelihoods…
Livelihoods for industrious farmers who grow rows rows and more rows
of kaleidoscopic colour and scent.
Blossoms and greenery ripe for plucking,
packing,
and shipping,
to markets in far cities and suburbs.
Livelihoods for florists, stylists, event divas and upmarket coffee shops
who create bundles of celebration,
bunches of hope,
bouquets of scented sadness,
posies of love,
wreaths of loss and remembrance.
Livelihoods for street hawkers who count their pennies and buy chrysanthemums and
arum lilies at the flower market,
to sell as they crouch under patchy thatch shelters next to second hand clothes,
mobile phone chargers and plastic shoes at dusty roadside markets.
Livelihoods for the jobless who can count no pennies and who gather faded rejected
blooms from the market to sell somehow, somewhere.
Who gather, from the wild, protected flame lilies and leopard orchids.
Botanical attractions to sell on the side of potholed dusty roads or to hawk to slow
moving drivers at congested intersections.
Flowers are gifts…
fresh for giving,
faded for selling.
Flowers are
Solace to the bereaved,
Joy to the beloved,
Hope to the ill,
Sweet balm to the depressed.
A reminder to the cynical, to be less so.
Take off your mask, your muzzle…..
bury your nose
in the scent,
the petals
of a rose.
Take off your glasses, your rose-tinted spectacles…
rest your eyes
on the beauty,
the wonder
of a flower.
P
A
G
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