Zeena Singh
‘Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing.....Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago......’ wrote Pete Seeger – but as I re-quote, here lies no political innuendo as his may have carried.
I look for the flowers that once were in the spontaneous walk in the rain, in the unplanned clamber up a peach tree just to get the taste of peach, ripe or raw. Flowers, in the loud off- the-cuff guffaw, only because you had happened to see a friend trip on a plastic bag, along the way. Flowers, in the guzzling- up- of -a- friend’s punched drink to save her from getting into trouble, forgetting that you yourself were not intoxication proof; flowers, in the long hours spent on all fours, on a bed of clovers to be the first, or the one lucky one to spot the four-leafed charm.
Flowers, in the lolling upon the grassy green , eyes glued and straining to catch a glimpse of as many jet-liner trails as could be counted against a clear blue sky spotted with thick white cloud; flowers, in the race at neck-break speed down about two kilometres of bustling streets and a hurried scramble up locked gates to be back in time to avoid being grounded for lateness; flowers, in the reverie that all love songs were written just for you, serenading the moon-lit night, in the always-in-love mode, on a long river cruise; flowers, on the spur-of-the-moment decision that you want to go with the flow, to keep following the road you’re walking on and doing just that, right then and there.
‘Where have all the flowers gone..?’ The flowers, they exist right here and now, still among us as they once had, ‘long time ago’ .It is us who neither sees nor smells them anymore. We miss them we do, having in a conscious effort pushed them aside. We seem to have, somewhere down the road, moved on, somewhere gotten a tad too absorbed in distractions that have replaced them, full in the knowledge that we cannot remain garlanded, adorned and be-decked by them though we may long to, or can we?
With them who with me, can pause in appreciation of the wafts from the lingering perfume of the ‘once upon a times’ I share this , as also with them who will ( I hope)one day be able to be inundated in gratitude when they get heady with the perfumes surrounding them. May there be none who ask then, where the flowers have gone.
