You’re 65 and tired beyond all measure.
In the desert of your lassitude
Your last drop of vitality
Has drained away,
Your vibrant years all stacked behind you,
The dull ones stretching out ahead
In a tedious dead-end road.

Then you notice the geranium
Sitting on the bedroom sill.
Taken in too late,
Its stems mostly pulp now,
Its clay pot covered with mold,
It has unexpectedly
Produced a leaf.
You examine its network of
Intricate, dark veins
Branching out like tiny trees,
The faint ring around its center
Like the one the children used to leave
After their nightly bath,
And at the end of a corkscrew vine,
Two pregnant buds,
Drooping with the weight of the flower
Tucked inside like a secret
Concealed all winter long
And now ready to burst forth,
Five petals unfolding rapidly
In staccato bursts of crimson red
Shocking against the cold-steel sky.

Cautiously, you cut the stem
And place it in a jar of water.
Left in the hazy April sun,
By the kitchen window,
It generates as if by conjury
A tangled ball of silky roots.
When finally you plant it in the loamy soil
You can feel the stirring in your heart
Of fresh, new life
As if an old, discarded dream
Had suddenly come to fruition.

(originally published by Artvilla)