Flushed Poem by Lonnie Hicks

In my garden gambol
green beetles
by twos and threes,

who sing to High Tulips
blushing pink
in harmonies.

Flushed,
adoration-framed,
they rainbow through
emotions gained
from beetle songs
choir sung.

I part the foliage clef
to observe what enchantment deft
musical beetles pant
to flowered plants
swaying in the green.

I am transfixed
in this gloaming,

where songs stroke
the airy night;

uplifting
tulip bulbs-
rhapsodied
and honey dewed.

On me then
euphonies:

Beatles sing
because we don't,
to balm absence's pain.

They sing our song
of high praise;
because we won't,


for tulips,
gardens, soil and loam.

We are the children
who've lost
the songs
which were mother's songs
now vague;
distant,
gone.

Our ears
deaf now,
withdrawn.

The beetles stand in for us
sing our songs
in their metallic
greens,

arpeggios falling to
my journal page
explaining
why they sing

to tulip bulbs,
flushed
on the green:

all quiet now-
each bulb
reminded-
they are loved.