Here's another portrait of flower arrangements under capitalism.
***** From Stephen Crane, "War Is Kind"
The trees in the garden rained flowers. Children ran there joyously. They gathered the flowers Each to himself. Now there were some Who gathered great heaps -- Having opportunity and skill -- Until, behold, only chance blossoms Remained for the feeble. Then a little spindling tutor Ran importantly to the father, crying "Pray, come hither! "See this unjust thing in your garden!" But when the father had surveyed, He admonished the tutor: "Not so, small sage! "This thing is just. "For, look you, "Are not they who possess the flowers "Stronger, bolder, shrewder "Than they who have none? "Why should the strong -- "The beautiful strong -- "Why should they not have the flowers?"
Upon reflection, the tutor bowed to the ground. "My lord," he said, "The stars are displaced "By this towering wisdom." *****
Or else, flowers of utopia dreamed by solitary lovers unable to break the chains of oppression, like this:
***** William Butler Yeats, "The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart"
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. *****
And yet, we may still make a right Rose Tree:
***** Yeats, "The Rose Tree"
"O words are lightly spoken," Said Pearse to Connolly, "Maybe a breath of politic words Has withered our Rose Tree; Or maybe but a wind that blows Across the bitter sea."
"It needs to be but watered,' James Connolly replied, "To make the green come out again And spread on every side, And shake the blossom from the bud To be the garden's pride."
"But where can we draw water,' Said Pearse to Connolly, "When all the wells are parched away? O plain as plain can be There's nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree." *****
Yoshie