Flora
A Poem by Sara da Encarnação in Celebration of Flora Day
Flora
She does not arrive. She returns
the way a word returns
to the mouth that first made it—
not with news,
but with insistence.
The trees do not decide.
The bees do not choose.
Something passes
and everything opens.
There is a kind of love
that does not ask.
It makes the conditions
and waits—
and the waiting
is the making.
In May she walks through
what is not yet ready.
She does not slow.
The not-yet-ready blooms behind her
as a word blooms in the mind
a moment after you thought
there were no words.
Every year
the same return—
not because it is easy
but because it is owed.
In the late light
through the wisteria,
through the silence
that already knows her—
she does not turn.
Behind her,
everything
open.
A note on Flora Day
Flora Day, celebrated on May 8th, is one of the oldest surviving festivals in Britain, held each year in Helston, Cornwall, to mark the passing of winter and the arrival of spring. The town fills with bluebells, gorse, and laurel. Dancers move through houses, shops, and gardens in the famous Furry Dance, weaving the green of the season into every threshold. It is a festival of welcome—of letting the season cross into the dwelling, the body, the year.
The Roman goddess Flora, to whom the day owes its older lineage, was honored at the Floralia, a festival of flowering, fertility, and the unbidden generosity of the earth. She did not preside. She permitted.
This poem honors both inheritances—the Cornish threshold-crossing and the Roman patience—and adds a third: the recognition that what returns each May is not new. It is owed. And we are the ones who must remember to leave the door open.
Reflection: Flora
Sara da Encarnação invites us into a quieter understanding of spring — one that does not arrive with fanfare but returns by old agreement. Her poem reminds us that the season is not a guest we welcome but a debt the earth keeps paying. The trees do not decide. The bees do not choose. Something passes, and everything opens.
Tomorrow is Flora Day in Helston, Cornwall, one of the oldest surviving spring festivals in Britain. Bluebell, gorse, and laurel are carried through the doorways of the town. Dancers cross threshold after threshold in the Furry Dance, bringing the green of the season into every house, every shop, every garden. The festival owes its older lineage to the Roman Floralia, where the goddess Flora was honored not as ruler but as permitter—the one who let the flowering happen.
Today, consider what is returning in your own life. Not arriving. Returning. The bloom that comes back every year because some old contract between you and the world still holds. The friendship that picks up where it left off. The grief that visits each season. The poem that gathers in the silence before you knew you were writing it. The waiting is the making.
Take a moment today to notice what is crossing your threshold without asking. The wisteria. The light through the kitchen window. The name of someone you love spoken aloud for no reason. Sara reminds us that we are not the source of what blooms. We are the door.
And when you feel the season pass through you—owed, unbidden, generous—ask yourself Sara’s quieter question:
What in your life are you finally willing to permit?
About The Poetry Posse
A collective of poets writing in conversation. We respond to shared themes, creative constraints, and each other’s work—proving poetry is better when it’s collaborative, not solitary. Each series pushes us into new territory. Join the conversation.
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Beautiful Sara!
Sara love it! Fierce and evolving!