Poem: The Arrangement 💐🥀

There are no contracts in friendships.
Even fast friends.
Even long arcs.

Friendships are loose, wild things.

Some flowers bloom fast
and drop without word.

In this arrangement, the stem of small roses are all at different stages.

One already gone.
One loosening softly at the edges.

Fading.

One fully present.

Just there. Because.

It’s not as intentional as you wish.

And two still waiting to open.

Buds.

All coming from the same stem.

And then—
I placed a bright branch of orange butterfly weed
leaning toward the window light.

Cloud of small blossoms like a flock of monarchs.

Then a single coneflower fading
from pink into lavender—
or perhaps soft lavender
becoming bright pink. It changes depending on your point of view.

Dusty miller cooling everything
a soft fuzzy silver-green.

Curling leaves.

No flowers.
Not gray.
Not when the light touched it.

Among it all,
inside the clean fluted vase
balanced on its delicate pedestal,
a small rose-metallic butterfly:

something delicate
used for stability.

That is love.

Unable to keep the flowers
from wilting,
withering,
petals dropping.

That is love.

Not forcing what leaves to stay.

Just quietly holding beauty together for a time
while something fragile
holds alterations.

The world is a garden of flowers.

We are delicate vases.

Our love is often a small butterfly
holding what it can.

And when the petals fall,
when the water clouds,
when the arrangement empties—

refill your vase.

The world is still a garden.

I don’t care if it is trite and sentimental.

Refill your vase.

The world is your garden.