Tulip, Red

Eugene Field was a part of my life on an almost daily basis for five years,
      yet I did not know him.
From ages six to eleven I attended Eugene Field Elementary School
      outside Muncie, Indiana.
Who was this man?
A statesman? A war hero? An intrepid explorer?
Turns out, I learned years later, he was a poet and a journalist.
If I had known this when I was playing softball
      on the playground that bore his name,
            I would probably have referred to him as “a measly writer.”
One of his more popular poems begins this way:
“Any color, so long as it’s red,
Is the color that suits me best.”
As I lay on the ground in Holland, Michigan’s town square,
      eyeballing which of the thousands of tulips I’d photograph,
            this is one on which I chose to concentrate.
The sun was dancing on this ruby beauty,
      the background shadow isolating its form.
To me this photograph is less about “flower” and more about “color,”
      less about “tulip” and more about “red.”
Today I know that the mystery man from my boyhood was right:
      any color suits me just fine, as long as it’s red.