NaPoWriMo: Day 22 - Tulips At The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

Two more poems and then I'm caught up for good, huzzah! The numbering on this year's NaPoWriMo is shot to hell and back, but heck with it - I'm determined to finish the month out with the necessary number of poems. It's a form of masochism, but as Calvin's father says, 'It builds character.'

#22: Tulips at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens
Prompt: Write a poem to celebrate Earth Day, or anything in nature

Flounces, ruffles, extravagant bells
All the accoutrements of a lady's ballgown
Inverted like fine eggshell china cups
Delicately balanced on slim green stalks.
The profusion of colours is staggering:
Palest pastel shades, deep robust tones
Some feathered through with pink, flame and celadon
Others vermillion and crimson streaked
With elegant black-and-yellow stamen'd centers.

Little wonder that once, these beauties
Were lauded beyond kings, prized beyond gold -
Fields of living jewels, carpeting the earth
Treasures carved by no living hand, touched
By the breath of God.