In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Prolific.
The prompt prolific can be interpreted as pro-life. It’s in there: pro-lific and pro-life. Looks like these two might have something in common, right?
I’m not speaking of pro-life in the sense of anti-abortion—let’s not even look in that direction. It’s pro-life more in the sense of obsessively bringing things to life. Regardless of whether said things wish to be alive in the first place or would rather choose not to.
Spring is a quintessentially prolific season, hence my tulip photo. I never post tulips while omitting to quote my pet poet Sylvia Plath. I think I get her, or she gets me, whichever way you put it. She wasn’t particularly pro-life, which we have in common, as manifested by her choice to quit and put her head in the oven. And since we live in an age when you can’t say anything without offending someone, please let it be recorded that I’m not pro-suicide. Which is quite a feat, for a suicidal person.
But now, rest your eyes on the tulips and consider how they feel. That’s how tulips feel to Plath:
The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.
Mara Eastern 
This reminded me how much I love Plath.
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Me too. ❤
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What are you shooting with by the way?
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Mostly just the phone!
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Never read that poem of Plath’s. That’s a different take on such an elegant flower.
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Plath might not be your thing, she’s quite depressing. But deep. It’s totally my thing, to look at tulips, which most people would love, and see something threatening and suffocating…
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This also is one of my favorite poems. Did you read my post on Sylvia Plath, in which I quote this poem and present a textual analysis of Mushrooms? Mushrooms deals with many of the issues relating to the prolific but creepy/creeping nature of nature that you reference so eloquently here.
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Oh, would you care giving me a link to your post? I’d love to read it!
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Here is the link, Mara. https://oudeis2005.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/sylvia-plaths-full-stops/
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Thank you! I enjoyed your article and I’m with you on the words of praise for this unique poet and her work.
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I liked the poem. They’re too red. I don’t have any relation to tulips at all, but I prefer them pinkish purple. I have an online buddy in NL, the land of tulips. This person had taken photos of fields of tulips in various colours. Pictures that would have been literally awesome if they had only sat down to get a low, wide angle + levelled the horizon. I couldn’t say anything, but talk about that my OCD-tendencies were tingling …
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Just you describing the photos made me uncomfortable. What a waste of a great scenery. I really like tulips, but I like the poem too and I sort of feel it and get the idea… Even more than tulips I like dandelions and poppies. For some reason unknown.
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I love poppies. Don’t know who decided dandelions were a weed, why people are so hysterical about getting rid of those little smilie faces in the grass. Can’t be good for the bees either … ?!
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I know, right! Who decides what is weed and what is not? I genuinely prefer “weeds” to cultivated flowers. Dandelions are so bloody awesome: I can’t think of another plant that starts with a regular blossom and then turns into those wonderful fluffy things…
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