Flower Colors

"My luve is like a red, red rose . . ."  -- Robert Burns

I wonder who assigned red to the rose,
the blackeyed Susan's black, the bluebell's blue?
Whence dawns the white while wild the whitebeam grows,
the pale pink gloss that paints the moss pink's hue?

Does not the yellow trumpet swell her color
from yellow insects who would win her nectar,
like some firefly just dropping by to gull her
she traps to bite before it might suspect her?

So how do other floral colors flood
from similar seeds with equal needs to grow?
Do tiger lillies kill to swill hot blood
while Easter lilies feast on chilly snow?

And so what if a flower turns different hues,
the stem and plumes grow green while blooms blow blue?
Why does the parrot tulip share and fuse
its yellow leaves with red-streak sleeves askew?

Do blooms galore arise before their name?
Or come to exist after their christening?
Do lady killers plot to fill their fame?
Or dew drops list their birth by glistening?

How does God settle on a petal's blush?
Does He let Mother Nature smother all,
or, God-like, draw His artist's awesome brush
and paint each particle through art so small?

So where do all these myriad colors start?
You can't get water from a pot that's dry.
The bloodroot's bud bursts from His flooding heart,
the goldenrod's bright glow shows God's own eye.

The orchid's joyful purple royalty,
the lemon lily's yellow spilling light,
the bugle's boyish blue for loyalty,
the Christmas rose with pure clothes so white.

These color qualities are all of One
Who paints His clever spectrum everywhere,
 a riot of zestful dyes and festive fun  
 that beam out proud and scream out loud His care.


With cherry plum He plants hope from above,
  the sweet pea's charm to help us harmonize,
the crimson glory vine the more to love,
the bird of paradise our fairest prize.

You see God there with utmost care at work
to shape the belladonna's shell and tone,
the monkshood's power, the monkey flower's smirk,
the crosswort's love reflective of His own.

The laurel's white, the buttercups bright, and more,
the myrtle's blue, the lilac's too we see,
the honeydew He's willing to outpour,
and love-lies-bleeding's red all shed so free.

You wonder Who assigned red to His rose,
whose molecules all His own rules control?
A rainbow new, His prism beauty flows
like God's great grin from deep within His soul.

                    -- by Pete Voelz       2001