Flowers, by Phillip Hoyle

1915

I've watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow,
In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune;
Primroses and the first warm day of Spring,
Red poppy floods of June,
August, and yellowing Autumn, so
To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow,
And you've been everything.

Dear, you've been everything that I most lack
In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books,
Music, the quiet of an English wood,
Beautiful comrade-looks,
The narrow, bouldered mountain-track,
The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black,
And Peace, and all that's good.

Robert Graves

I was never sure why the romantic tradition never set well with me. I read poetry in high school and college that usually left me simply wondering what the poet felt and meant. I didn’t really like romantic sections of books or movies; they seemed like an interruption to a good plot. I had friends I found interesting, boys who intrigued me, girls I wanted to date. For school dances I bought flowers for the girls. For my girlfriend I bought a necklace with a fiery opal. She was thrilled. But I knew I was following a form I had learned rather than a feeling that called me into a world of romance. My deepest feelings were for boys rather than girls, but of course, that attraction didn’t proffer any romantic images. They just weren’t there; at least I couldn’t find them. In those days I’m sure that had I read this Robert Graves poem “1915”, I would have missed the “beautiful comrade-looks” he cited; for in the world in which I grew up romance, such as was described in poetry, was meant for a special relationship between a man and a woman.

My introduction to Walt Whitman was given no homosexual slant. It was interpreted by a minister/scholar whose enthusiasm for the poet’s work took a theological slant, one that celebrated all creation. It was the first poetry I could honestly admit to liking—well besides James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphan Annie”, Henry W. Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha”, and Vachel Lindsay’s “The Congo”. It took years to open myself to the idea that Whitman was talking about romance between two men, like comrades at arms or friends lying together in leaves of grass.

I married at age 21. I deeply loved my wife and was so pleased to be entering the life we chose together. But even after living together, I realized the gifts I offered her were to her something quite different than they were to me. Her view of our relationship was romanticized. Mine was enthusiastic and generous and celebrated love, a la C. S. Lewis’ writing, especially his book Basic Christianity. I found it so helpful but eventually I came to realize his view was inadequate, the old Don speaking long before he had the experience of falling in love, a thing that for him came late in life.

At age 30 I fell in love with a man. Then I began to know a bit of what romance was about. But being such a late blooming flower in that field, it took twenty-five years more for me to fall deeply in love. For that experience I thank the most beautiful male flower I ever encountered, Rafael Martínez, whom I deeply loved in every practical and romantic way the two of us could imagine. He amazed me one night when he said, “You’re so romantic.”

Using his best English, Rafael wrote in a card: “My sweet love; I can’t express in full sentences what my soul and heart feel. My whole life has been changed and you made everything spin around in me. I am overwhelmed.

“When I express out and loud I love you, you don’t have any idea of how much I mean it.

“I am not just glad to have you. I am extensible and sensible over you (and deeply in love).”

I thought that card was better than any love lyric I had ever enjoyed or any bouquet of flowers I had ever seen. And I too loved Rafael.

© 13 Feb 2017 

About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general, he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com