bougainvillea blossoms
following the wind
to the beach
Published by
Bob Lucky
Bob Lucky is the author of Careful Not to Startle the Yaks (Cyberwit, 2025) My Wife & Other Adventures (Red Moon Press, 2024), My Theology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019), Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize 2018, and Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014). He lives in Portugal.
View all posts by Bob Lucky
Remarkable how the statement that the petals follow the wind surprises us to mentally examine the apparent anomaly and serves to focus the images in the mind.
So lovely, Bob.
This is such a wonderfully active image. For me, it conjures up the notion of young children encumbered with all their favorite floaties excitedly tumbling behind their parents in anticipation of a dip. I spent a year care taking in a friend's Earthship home, the interior flower beds of which were overhung with bougainvillea. It was a never-ending task, keeping up with all the fallen blossoms. On windy days, they found their way into every nook and cranny. I share that to point to the way the idea in Bob's poem doubles itself–as the bougainvillea blossoms follow the wind, so we follow the bougainvillea blossoms. Wonderfully poem skillfully executed!
true, and thank you for sharing that pov, I had just seen the paper light blossoms following the wind, on the golden beige beach …
brevity is the soul of wit. -Bob Lucky
Very beautiful, especially this morning, to have a lovely image to be inspired by.
A wonderfully bright and breezy ku, that sings to me of childhood summers spent at the beach with my siblings. Thanks for sharing, Bob.
marion
I spent a year care taking in a friend's Earthship home
This is a fantastically lively image. For me, it brings me images of small children tumbling behind their parents in anticipation of a dip, laden with all of their beloved floaties.