White Lilies

This is for Frank J. Tassone’s haikai challenge for this week, which is about white lilies or azaleas. I loved this prompt and wrote many haiku but not one that I wanted to share, so here, finally, is a tanka. Frank describes the meaning of these flowers in his blog post, and part of what gave me inspiration was this: “Gifting white lilies to someone during this time indicates that you are very happy to be acquainted with the recipient.”

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You are pure beauty
And you were made perfectly,
White-lily woman.
You hid your petals before.
I am pleased to meet you now.