"Anniversary" - 9/12/2023
The petal caught in the deck planks makes me think of you. I pull it from its near-grave and twirl it in my fingers. These pink ones fall from the plant outside the bedroom window every few days. I specify the plant because there are many now. There have been a lot this year, my first full one without you.
Things hurt more after you left, because you used to handle that. You purred and licked my daily wounds, and I guess I’m not as good as you at it. Brava.
The plants have helped (as has therapy). So many plants: purchases from the market, castaways from the horticulturalist downstairs put out for nature to handle. Being nature, I often can’t stand it and they end up out here, on the balcony. I water them (more than I did you) and I feed them (no way as much you).
I kid.
I do with them what I can, but when I am away, and I am away---we make sure to get out of the house---when I am gone, they are at the mercy of the falling rain, the spin around the sun.
Inevitably the petals fall, and I occasionally offer them up to you. If they dry out and turn ugly (most do) I place them in the trash, and the good ones remain with you: a slowly building, dusty potpourri atop your little head.
I just wanted you to know what I’m doing, how I’m doing---
that as the petals fall these days, today, 365 days without you, I rise a little higher from my bed each morning and see life outside my window. And when the flowers cease and the trunks and roots are dried and snow-dusted, I will smile at the falling flakes, wonder about next year’s growth, and know that I will survive this winter.
Things hurt more after you left, because you used to handle that. You purred and licked my daily wounds, and I guess I’m not as good as you at it. Brava.
The plants have helped (as has therapy). So many plants: purchases from the market, castaways from the horticulturalist downstairs put out for nature to handle. Being nature, I often can’t stand it and they end up out here, on the balcony. I water them (more than I did you) and I feed them (no way as much you).
I kid.
I do with them what I can, but when I am away, and I am away---we make sure to get out of the house---when I am gone, they are at the mercy of the falling rain, the spin around the sun.
Inevitably the petals fall, and I occasionally offer them up to you. If they dry out and turn ugly (most do) I place them in the trash, and the good ones remain with you: a slowly building, dusty potpourri atop your little head.
I just wanted you to know what I’m doing, how I’m doing---
that as the petals fall these days, today, 365 days without you, I rise a little higher from my bed each morning and see life outside my window. And when the flowers cease and the trunks and roots are dried and snow-dusted, I will smile at the falling flakes, wonder about next year’s growth, and know that I will survive this winter.
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