The following is one of the strongest little pieces I’ve ever written. That’s my own opinion, of course. I can’t remember the exact context of the exercise that produced this piece, except I was in a poetry writing workshop at LSUE during baseball season of my son’s junior high school year. I can’t remember which international crisis was going on at the time, but in the exercise the workshop leader presented, something having to do with a flower or something like that, this is what I came up with.
War Blooms
By David Pulling
April 1999
To the east
War blooms.
Which father’s son will go
To gather bloody blossoms?
Not mine.
He likes baseball
More than flowers
Anyway.
The picture here shows the grown-up son and now father coaching first base for Crowley High School seven years after the poem, where he teaches and coaches.
