One spring, while in the Netherlands, we took a tour of the vast tulips fields, just 30 miles from Amsterdam, namely the Keukenhof Gardens. What a rare and beautiful sight to behold.  The thought of just running wildly through the fields of these gorgeous flowers was much appealing but our guide soon put a ‘damper’ on it. Instead, he took us to Aalsmeer’s flower auction Hall.  Flowers are big business in Holland.  We were truly amazed as we sat and watched in astonishment a flower auction in motion. Trainload after trainload of tulips and other flowers made their way around the auction halls where sat over a thousand wholesalers bidding excitedly as the flowers cruised past them. Down comes the gavel announcing the winner of that particular load.   Did you know that every day over 21 million flowers find their way across Europe and around the world from Holland.  But, not to diminish that rare sight, I beheld one other sight when unexpectedly I came upon this delightful world of beauty not too far away and in my hometown.  I remembered reading a ‘Haiku’ once on the ‘elegant and stately Tulip’ and here it is folks, enjoy both, the ethereal calmness of color and the ‘Haiku’

I am a tulip

Dark, moist months I spent
in textures of earthiness,
dreaming of the light.

Breaking from my bulb
with radicle abandon,
i established roots.

I shot stems upward
to bud and leave with greenly
Tulipa delight.