Now Appearing at a Blog Near You--a Poem!

Lately I've been free-writing prose poems at night in my journal.  It's a fun exercise and a way to capture and crystalize a thought.  I was happy-ish with the way this one came together.

Thank you, I said to the orchid

When the last blossom folded its mottled white wings

And floated gently down to the counter.

I release you now, I said.

I’d bought the orchid one day soon after my father died.

Looking at it gave me soft comfort,

Made me think of my father the gardener,

Who told me I needed to discipline myself,

To resist the temptation to plant things too close together

So that each plant would have the space it needs to grow.

Like people.

The orchid bloomed and bloomed.  

Then stopped.  

Then bloomed and bloomed.

Then stopped.

Then bloomed again.

And I believed my father somehow had a hand 

in all that wild unexpected blooming from a grocery store orchid

And I also believed that when the blooming stopped for good

My heart would break all over again.

Until recently.

The blooms were gone from the green stick-insect stems, 

had been gone for a while this time and I felt . . . fine.

So I said I release you now. 

You’ve done your job.

I can manage from here.

I lifted my orchid from the counter to take it outside

And give it back whole to the ground

Because from dust to dust

But noticed that another tiny half-hidden bud

Was willing itself to be.

Thank you, I said to my father.