The truth is- that's me, and here I am hungry again, roots reaching out: PANIC. I grow. I bloom. I blossom watered with sweet words, the tender touch of friends. My food, sunlight, shelter, protection from winter, bringing in from storms all tended to by someone else. I am a potted plant. I am meant to decorate, bring joy, provide amusement, radiate kindness, and generally not ask for much.
I reach not for foreign places. I reach not to travel. I ask not for daily devotions or moving of mountains. I grow up, conservatively, and beautifully, in one, tiny, well-curated, well-established spot in a container garden on a patio of a loving home in a good neighborhood. The truth is- I probably wasn't his only potted plant, either, but that's a poem for another day. I grow from home. And now- I have none.
Suddenly with neither sickle nor trowel, but by my very gardener's bare hand, I learned how meekly I had grown my little roots. I learned how soft was that potting mix I had become so accustomed to. I was violently ripped by the stem in one tug, and cast onto the patio; looking up at a ceiling which I had not seen. I had not even considered such a thing. I gasped the air looking desperately about. Not yet suffering what I imagine is to come; the lack of water, the dying of my blossoms, the withering, the cold. I don't yearn for that same gardener to pick me up... and yet... I feel the need that perhaps someone should? Or perhaps am I meant to crawl my way off the porch and become some sort of invader in a garden bed, fighting with the other plants for food and sunlight?
Still, even after the pain and loss,
You would think I had learned, but I have not.
All I really want. All I've ever wanted
Is a beautiful little pot.
In a well-manicured spot.
Smiling at a gardener who would not
Try and make me what I am not,
but would tend in me what I am.
For what am I
but a potted plant in a container garden.
On a patio in the sunny South?