Collaboration #12 Anita Skeen wrote, Guillermo Delgado responded

 Flowers, Then

 In a plot beneath the dining room window
 my grandmother grew carnations, pink and white
 layers of lace smelling like the handkerchiefs she tucked
 discreetly up her cuff.  On Sunday morning my father
 might clip one for the buttonhole in his gray lapel.
 To the east side of the house, beneath my bedroom
 window, my mother grew roses, her favorites
 the peach of a Florida sunset, pink curl
 of a conch shell.  My grandmother fancied reds,
 bold and certain who they were, unlike her.
 I loved the yellows:  summer sun, no school,
 and my special Davy Crockett shorts.  On the bank
 outside the kitchen window, to the west, grew
 morning glories, blue of New Mexico sky, trumpets
 voluntary.  When they opened, a hillside symphony.
 When they closed, no one could pry their secret
 music from them.  To the north, where I roamed,
 blackberries, pokeberries, milkweed, ironweed.
 Gulley, full of poison ivy.  Rocks in the creek bed,
 grapevines to swing across.  Blossoms we trod on,
 some purple, some white, on our way wherever.

Guillermo Delgado's Untitled #12, 2009, mixed media on wood, 10'' x 10.25''