“Rosebud”
A deathbed whisper of Orson Wells as Citizen Kane that
we moviegoers eventually understood to be an encapsulated
word symbol representing a childhood trauma which sublimated into a compelling edee force that directed the strange driven life of Orson Wells or Citizen Kane.

Thank you, Branshea, but for you my whispered word on my
death bed might have been “buttercup”.
Let me tell you why…

Maybe I was five years old, maybe six, but not seven, when I was
abruptly introduced to buttercups.

“Hey, new boy” a boy on the playground shouted.
“Would you like to smell some pretty flowers? They smell good; they
are buttercups.”

I looked at the flowers bunched up in his hand.
They were the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen.

“Come on – smell - they won’t hurt you” he said, coming over and positioning
the buttercups just below my face. As I bent to smell he slammed the bouquet
with his fist into my face.

“Ha, ha,” he laughed, pointing at me, “ Hey, everybody look at the new boy,
He’s got yellow stuff all over his face”
None of the other kids laughed.

I was humiliated. My nose was bleeding but what I learned hurt even more.
I learned that there are two kinds of people on this Earth –
the good, and the bad. Sure, I had even as a child seen hot anger and even violence, but never had I ever seen a human with a visceral need to intentionally hurt another of his own kind. Maybe because of this I’ve become a better man (I promised that day I would never, ever, hurt another person) but even so I didn’t think much of them damn buttercups.

Until Branshea’s postings.
Today I sit at the computer looking at four buttercups I just picked. These are the Alabama buttercups of my yesteryear. Not at all like the flowers that are called buttercups in the Netherlands or among the Google’s Images. These are more like the crepe paper looking yellow petals of the buttercup that belmarduk posted, but not creped and not yellow, instead smoothly curved with white petals that have a tinge of pink at the top that grades infinitely into a perfect ivory white at the bottom where spreads upwards five golden anthers heavily coated with bright pollen.
These are simply the most beautiful flowers in the World.


Last edited by themilum; 03/29/07 09:03 PM.