What do you see?
The Last Petal
© By Carolann S. Wallace
Perfect as a rose petal
Watch as it endures
The blooms fight for their life
As they are surrounded by knives
For what they know best
Is the blossom of their hearts
They live in the moment they open
Hopes to achieve, reside in their minds
Petals come and petals go
Stop to watch as they appear
Appreciate the colors and smells
Learn from them while they are here
For they will disappear
No more chances do they get
They cannot be forgiven
For they must open and if they don’t
It is the end
Some will arise to the occasion
They are beautiful in every way
Every chance they get
To send sweet aroma in the air
To fill the days with colors so fair
But the life is short
Because they opened, they must fall
The fall to death
Conscious of the life they lived
Are they successful or
Do they suffer in agony
as the last petal falls
___
Someone sent me this poem today. At first, I had trouble understanding it. Emotively, it felt downcast and confusing … my simple mind refused to comprehend. On any other day, I would have evilly feigned comprehension, to maintain, if not augment, the aura of superior intellectual understanding. But I couldn’t … I just felt choked, cloistered in a tiny box. I wanted to know what it meant but I couldn’t place a finger on it.
In my one-dimensional pessimism, I had inferred that life was very final. That regardless of anything we do, we would still die. Nothing could change that, nothing else was more certain than death itself. It felt so depressingly resolute in its statement.
Which beckoned the next accompanying wretched question,
”What’s the point of living?”
___
Perplexing indeed it was until another email popped … and my friend so succinctly clarified …
“ Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap,
but by the seeds you plant…
And if you’re going through hell, keep going and never give up.
Energy and persistence conquer all things! ”
___
Blind. I was so blind.
I missed the forest for the trees.
She opened my eyes.
“Perfection is never easy as we are always surrounded by negativity, by people who’d like to pull us down. Perfection needs to be lived now and not later … if we do not strive to open our eyes and ears to the wonderful world around us, we achieve but one thing … death … for we are not living. Concentrate on fulfilling your destiny … share with the world all that is great about you. Ultimately, we will all leave this world … but the choice is ours; do we do leave as the perfect petal or a wasted, shriveled shell?”
Life can seem so utterly difficult at times … yet a lot of times, its a matter of perception. Why waste time looking at a glass half empty? Sometimes, we concern ourselves so much on the bad that we lose sight of things that matter. Who amongst us lives a day longer longer by worrying a day more? So live the day productively, working towards that greater goal, not the simply the mere 5Cs … cars, condos, cash, etc … but rather … the pursuit of happiness.
___
What do you see?
June 29th, 2007 at 2:33 am
Agreed to your last line… ‘pursuit of happiness’..
And to add on…
Living my life to the fulless.. at least when I’m at old age & looking back, I dare say I had lived my life with no regrets..
June 30th, 2007 at 8:55 am
We have but one life, are we to go against the tide to achieve our dreams? Its really a matter of choice.
The pursuit of happiness, so alluring yet so fearful. What do we know of our destiny to know what will make us happy?
“To be happy is to be able to love and be loved….” yet the hardest thing on this earth is to be able to love and be loved in return. Ain’t it true?
I do have regrets…. those are just the fallen petals… but I am still in bloom, still filling the air with sweet aromas…. until the last petal falls….
July 1st, 2007 at 1:02 am
To each its own…everyone has the right to be happy in their own way.. And the MIND is a powerful mechanism that dictates whether one is happy or sad.In this sense, work on your mind…
Contentment brings about fulfillment…..
July 1st, 2007 at 7:49 am
Serene
- A lot of times, we wonder if the decision we make is a good one or a bad one … so much so that we do not do anything to avoid the bad that might befall us … but doing nothing in itself is a decision … I wouldn’t want to live my life in cowardice … so just the same, I’ll take those hard knocks in life along with the sweet dew that comes my way … To live my life with no regrets … agree … fully:)
Josephine
- “I do have regrets…. those are just the fallen petals… but I am still in bloom, still filling the air with sweet aromas…. until the last petal falls….”
Truly beautiful interpretation … To love and be loved in return … I do think of it many a times … So far, I’ve realized that we can’t force another to love us. The only thing we can affect is ourselves and that is to be someone whom can be loved. I take solace that at the very least, my loved one is happy wherever she is.
July 1st, 2007 at 8:09 am
Hi Lorraine,
Working on one’s mind … I fully agree, to strive to make ourselves stronger to handle all manner of adversity.
I do wonder … do we
a) Skip the bad moments in life and keep all the good memories. But it might mean we are living an illusion as we do not acknowledge the path we have tread. “Contentment brings fulfillment.” How do we achieve contentment if we do not acknowledge the difficult times in our life? We’d never know what we have until we have lost it.
Or
b) Remember the bad and good ones but learn from the bad to enjoy the good even more fully. However, it might be more painful since we will never ever truly learn everything there is to learn. We, in the end, are all fallible; we are human … we were never made to carry the pain of everything that comes our way … I daresay I might even go mad.
Or
c) Live an amalgamation of both theories. A balance perhaps would be the most prudent.
Such is the conundrum of life or more precisely our MIND. As you have so aptly said … work on your mind .. I so very much agree
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 am
Hello Jeremy..
On contrary…I intepreted the poem in a different way though I do agree with what you and the others said.
I think, other than the above, it’s also about appreciating life and the different people in the world for what they are, how they are.
We need to appreciate the flowers that did not, at that one single chance, for whatever reason open.
“They cannot be forgiven
For they must open and if they don’t
It is the end”
Why do the flowers need to be “forgiven” for not opening? And forgiven by whom? Were they not just exercising their own choice for not opening?
The world is cruel in that many times, we only have but 1 chance to prove ourselves. We need to live our life according to the norms in order to be accepted. Failure to comply would be “the end”.
While we should always be looking ahead positively in pursuit of happiness for ourselves, we should also not be so quick to judge those who seem unhappy or who, do not live their life in the way we think they should…for really, to who’s criteria and definition must they live their life?
Too often, we are too concerned about how we live our life. Are we happy? Are we doing the right thing? Are those around us being morally upright and so on and so forth. But in my honest opinion, we can only achieve true happiness when we live life the way we want, according to our own definition of happiness…not somebody elses’.
Just my 2 cents…
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:13 am
Yes. The Mind works up the sub-concious in us. I believe the sub-concious mind has the power to manifest into reality all that we convince it we want. And the key to tapping into the power of the subconcious mind lies in the messages we send it.
So think happy, positive. During times when life does not treat you too kindly, it does not matter. Let the moments of destress and despondency pass.
Its important as, like words, our thoughts can be positive or negative, and the mind cannot distinguish between the two. And I believe that positive affirmations will actualize desires and ambitions into reality.
So start wishing….. good things…..
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 am
Audrey
- Very insightful. Thanks for the alternate viewpoint. Your touching on the forgiveness issue is indeed interesting.
Perhaps its for those who already have a life … that they must live their life for they have already been given gift of entering this world. If they do not open themselves to the world .. then it is only death that they are living? The point of it all would be to treasure that one chance at life that we are all given.
I do so much enjoy your statement that we should not conform to other people’s perception of happiness but rather being own self … determining who we are and what denotes as our happiness.
Josephine
- The point about positive affirmation. I truly believe consistency in being positive will ultimately internalize a far more productive and happier nature.
As much as I have said “Why waste time looking at a glass half empty?” … I do sometimes wonder if it may (at the cost of playing the Devil’s Advocate) per chance give way to self-denial …
Regardless … I’ll continue wishing … good things
To all
- I’m very thankful all the comments thus far, thay have been extraordinarily thought provoking and hugely uplifting