The legislation of flowers
If this were an allegory written to illuminate the abuse of women through the symbol
of flowers if I wanted to show, in a story, the way that the intrinsic and multitudinous
beauty of women is destroyed over and over again in so many ways and in every land
then scenes of fields of flowers being wantonly plucked and tossed aside to wither
for no purpose, no reason, would bloom upon this page.
I could fill this page with images of a global flower field being invaded by corsage crazy
pickers raggedly ruining in a rampage of greed for dominion until the petals bled in all
their colors and the page reeked with the perfume of loss.
In asides, I would remind you that flowers are the secret essence of life the quickening,
the blooming, the ripening and the withering in more than metaphor.
Flowers attract, brighten, perfume and carry the seeds of the future within them and
in spreading their petals and allowing the sharp tongue of bee's exploration/bird's
exploitation/wind's dalliance and various other utilizations of their secret language which
is rich in propensity to procreation they plant the continuation of life firmly with their
Chloris touch.
I could mention that there are forced bulbs brought to maturity through artificial means
and before their time. I could talk, also, about those hothouse creations manipulated into
colors more vivid and shapes more fantastic than any that can occur in nature (as if those
natural shapes and colors were not wonderful enough). I could tell you about the isolated
life that the gilded lilies live in their rarified atmospheres.
If I wanted to illustrate the way that our culture can shape us I might record the songs
sung by those cultivated flowers the shivering song of misery that is beautiful to hear
because the flowers are beautiful and can't help producing beautiful music with their tulip
throats, their rose lips their marigold whispers and creamy gardenia sighs tell you how
the hothouse workers hear the heavy droning of bees loaded with pollen thick with honey
making and quivering with the desire to plunge in that song and how the hothouse
workers take that song home with them in their heads wondering where their humming
of pleasure and the quick use of their mates comes from and reveling in the drive the
bustle the alive and thick with satisfied confidence that honeycombs their minds.
I might pontificate on crystallized edible petals that are used for garnish in gourmand
recipes with "garnish" being as of little consequence other than to enhance the main
dish.
(I don't have to tell you about the addictiveness of Poppies or the danger of Melicore or
that Bella Donna is a poison and a cure.)
I might tell you a parable of the three wild flowers Maidfern, Matronbloom and Wintercrone.
But what I really want you to think about when I am talking about the beauty and utility of
flowers is this: that women are not flowers.
We are not flowers. We are not for your picking, your clumsy vasing attempts in which you
sort order by the studious arrangement of us, we are not to be forced or permutated to
your ends.
We are something better than the lilies of the field, bouquets of symbolism, perfumed nights
and exotic colors, delightful garnish and purposeful receptacle for insect/bird/bee.
True, we are carriers of life, and it is only fitting that we should bear that life but at/in/under
our own proper season one of those seasons being "not now," one of those seasons being
"not at all." The decision is solely our own not to be governed as if by some strict
"horticulturist's" code not given over to the winds of politics or the rains of propaganda not
legislated according to a potpourri of misinformation and a misguided desire for one group to
impose their ideas of how woman should be whether aesthetically or procreatively.
Let there be no legislation of our bodies/our "flowers"/ourselves. We are fecund and we wish
to remain so but free.
One "flower's" opinion.