By Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer 
WESTERN BUREAU:
A Flower Blooms, written by Errol D Bean, is summed up on the back cover of the 145 page book as, 'a treasury of strength and hope containing more than ninety carefully and creatively written statements, poems and poetic prose'.
As summaries go, it is accurate enough, but the real meat of the matter or in this case, the scent of the bloom is in the reading.
One thing is clear. The author knows and loves flowers and he loves family, the two combining in his smiling daughter, Dalea, posing with sunflower in hand for the cover illustration in an introspective fashion and presenting it to the viewer with a sunny smile of her own on the back. His dedication also indicates his 'soft spot' for women of the world and all persons who work for the liberation, upliftment and development of women.
'GIRLIE' POETRY
That said, though, A Flower Blooms is certainly not a book of 'girlie' poetry. Segmented in five, 'Your Life is a Growing Flower', 'Into the Mystic of the Flower', 'Reflection Nourishes Your Flower', 'When The Enemy Attacks Your Flower' and 'Your Flower Blooms', with 'Resurrection Fern' as an epilogue, the book traces life's journey through flowers.
In that vein, the opening and introductory Break Through and Grow is conceptualised as 'a bud from the/growing point on the/Tree of Life, planted/by Divine Hand/In the beginning/a tender bud which/Grows, flourishes and blooms/Here today and gone (forever?) TOMORROW!'
It is natural that the book should almost end with a look at the eventual fate of all living things, death, in 'When I Die', but on a celebratory instead of accustomed sorrowful note:
When I die
Arise and Sing
Sing soft and low
Like a wounded Robin;
Sing loud and long
Like the happy Lark
Let the music play
Beat the Drums
Let them echo with praise
Give thanks!
Bean makes that thanks well founded with the final two pieces, (In) Hope ('let not hope, the Flame of Life, die within you') and the Resurrection Fern epilogue, a conversation of sorts between the state of 'Being In Stress' and 'Divine Reason', the latter comforting that 'the time of your refreshing is near'.
Bean uses particular flowers and the emotions around them to develop series of poems, so the rose inspires the poems To Love and Young Man, Love, among others, and the orchid, described as a tender flower, inspires Mystic Mystery and The Single Girl.
The Yellow Poui takes on On Christian Ethics and On Marriage, while the oleander continues the Christian theme with Portrait (I, Christian), which states enigmatically that 'not even I am known by me'.
PROMINENCE
The piece which Bean gives prominence on the cover and which is printed in bold text to underscore its importance, comes via the forget-me-not and is entitled The Black African Bloom. It is a dramatic departure from the accustomed themes of A Flower Blooms, stating:
We need a Black Flower
To remind us of the African Connection
Of Hannibal and Amistad
We need a Black Flower
To depict the coffles and the chains
The resistance
The struggle for freedom
In the Americas and the West Indies...
The content of Errol Bean's book, though earnest and heartfelt, is not a dazzling series of images and intricate turns of phrase. Instead, it is a collection of concerns in which the lines between the '90 carefully and creatively written statements, poems and poetic prose' often blur.
Stunning literature it is not. Instructive in the ways of life and 'livity' it is.
Illustrations, mainly of flowers, by Clovis Nelson and Natalie Barnes are a good touch.
