It's Still Life

The Secret Charm of Carnations

Carnations are like childhood,
like a mother-tongue language
that’s as familiar as its name.
Its cinnamon scent binds
it to a different world,
a Moroccan universe of spice and
cumin and dates and raisins,
a primary flower that’s as small
as a comet or large as a moon.
Satellites in a vase, buttery soft
as warm earth after rain
and diffused of colour
in tints of veined splashes.
A seduction on my dining table.

for Miz Quickly’s Carnation prompt. The image is “The Temple of Flora” by Robert John Thornton, “New illustration of the sexual system of Carolus von Linnaeus”