{"id":498,"date":"2026-02-17T12:39:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=498"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:39:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:39:35","slug":"flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=498","title":{"rendered":"Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I dreamt of enormous
floral pictographs
painted onto rock face 
by women who scaled 
vast, sheer cliffs
\u2014with waves drawing 
and pulling and crashing
into prismatic iodine spray
and riotous roaring sounds 
down below\u2014
to gain purchase
when they climbed
deftly on strong arms
with delicate footing
carrying just enough
pigment to leave a
momentary mark 
on Mother Earth.

I dreamt that these women
carried out this annual rite
to color the seaside
in honor of life, of love
of renewal and gratitude.

I dreamt that I was flying
that I could soar and see
all the versions of beauty
the curl of this rosy petal
the swirling of that
acid green leaf over there
the plump blooms
in lavender over here
the hints of tulips on a 
wave-washed cave 
by the lip of the sea.

I dreamt that the 
region was an 
explosion of colors
and that women danced
on the clifftop 
in the moist grass
singing with a reverent air.

I could not understand
their words, but it was clear
that the song was one of 
hope, of trust, of welcome.

The Earth laughs in flowers<\/em>
Ralph Waldo Emerson
once said.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cFlowers,\u201d a poem about last night’s dream, surrounding mysterious flowers and song from women of the cliffside town of my imagination. Written February 17, poem 048 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Waves on cliffside, Maui.” Photo by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[143,144,57,142,124,147,146,145,70],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-poems","tag-cliffs","tag-dream","tag-february","tag-flowers","tag-hope","tag-mother-earth","tag-renewal","tag-surreal","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}