If I knew all the colours’ names
I would not know enough
to catalogue the tulip’s flames
in these fields lined with rough
wet grasses where the great swans feed
and grebes give grebe chicks rides
through waterways that squarely lead
to dikes that damp the tides.

For miles and miles the tulips grow
in every shade then some:
lavender, and furnace glow;
purest black, and plum.
Reds so hard they hurt your eyes,
greens as pale as smiles
exchanged by lawyers, blues like skies
and golds that gleam like piles

of museum treasures in the sun
that recalls tulips when they’re done.