Imperfect Flowers (for Ariela)

After watching the bees in there lurid dancing and making-out with the blossoms of my Mayday tree, I conducted a bit of online study about bees and flowers and made a startling discovery!

We are imperfect.  Well, if we were flowers that would be so.

Flowers, you see, are divided into three types: perfect, imperfect, and incomplete. 

Perfect flowers are both male and female.  An example of a perfect flower (anatomically and otherwise) is the rose.  The beauty of a perfect flower is that reproduction can occur within one bloom because both the pistil (female part) and the stamens (male part) are present.  Imagine the human equivalent.  Further imagine that everyone around us could get pregnant by means of self-satisfaction.

That gives one pause.

Imperfect flowers are either male or they are female—same as us, providing you don’t take into account certain districts in New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro.  Sometimes, both male and female flowers can occur on the same plant.  This is handy for reproduction since the wind tossing the flowers about might be enough to transfer pollen from the male parts to the female parts, which is the nitty-gritty of reproduction.  Imperfect flowers may also appear separate on male and female versions of the very same plant.  In this case mightier weather events may transfer of pollen or insects and animals may act as a vector for pollen between the sexes.

The sex life of an imperfect flower is notably more romantic than the sex life of perfect flowers.   But now imagine that every time the wind blows briskly or an insect lands on you a pregnancy might result. 

The third sort of flower, the incomplete, might be perfect or imperfect, but is missing one of the four major anatomical features of a flower: petals, sepals, stamens, or pistil.  Incomplete flowers tend to require a bit more outside assistance in the transfer of pollen.  Bees perform quite well in this regard.

Alas, we arrive back to the two of us, my imperfect flower.  We hold and gleefully embrace our unchanging and opposite sexes.  The bees, sadly, will not suffice in bringing us together.  We are ever a work in progress, sexually speaking.

We need more…  A big jet plane to carry one of us near.  Quiet conversation at the undefined edge of a forest.  A bottle of red wine.   The smallest slice of the moon hoisted above the low hills or the ocean.  A long drive.  A short swim.  The cry of tree frogs.  Crickets in Montana.

A kiss.

A thoughtful silence.

Everything.  

Yours,

--Mitchell Hegman