Live like a Plant: A Missed Goal

My mother loves me, and one of the ways she expresses this is through her appreciation of my various creative works. She once said that she would take a picture or poem of mine over traditional gifts, so since then I have sometimes tried to create something for just her, some kind of artsy gift (I still can’t use that word without laughing).

So, as Mother’s Day rolled around, I thought I would right a poem for her, preferably about her. But as I settled in to write in the midst of a shady park, my mind wandered away from ideas about what my mother was like, and towards the nature around me. I have spent a couple hours each week walking and studying plants of late, making use of a nifty little app to identify the local flora, and then the internet to learn more about each identified species. At first I started doing this because I was specifically looking for edible plants which grew naturally here in Florida (if you can guess why, secret hi-five!). However I quickly got distracted by the intrigue of learning more about these plants, whether they were consumable or not. Abrus Precatorius is a fine example of one such bunny trail. And like I said in my last post, while I look into these things, I often find an applicable meaning to the way God has created them.

With such thoughts crawling through my head, then, I started writing the poem. It’s little wonder, with a brain like mine, that the poem I ended up with wasn’t what I’d originally planned. But, I think it turned out to be a great poem despite that, as is often the case.

Live Like a Plant

Succulents need but a little water
To live for years on end
But their wisdom goes still deeper
Listen on to comprehend

Within the cell lies a certain switch
To make it grow or bide its time
When it's dry it resolutely survives
and when there's water it thrives

The rose, too, may mystify
With alluring beauty and thorny bite
But this is not the only way
That seeming opposites combine

A certain landscaper planted roses
A wife's request undeniable
He clipped and scorned those scraggly bushes
To pleasingly find them un-killable

The air plant, too, defies the norm
Hanging gray nets, catching no fish
But one may in them an ally find
If support is what you wish

This plant lives not by itself
Nor does it keep its roots in the ground
It gains its water from the air
And its food from the trees to which it's bound

So though it hangs in quiet mystery
It can on company depend
And though it could be called exotic
It's not too proud to need its friends

Mayhap this little contemplation
To you be stranger than the reeds
And in your steady daily life
Less useful than the weeds

But the reeds grow where others drown
And the weeds feed those we deny
So it is perhaps worth the time
To seek what by patience may be found

In these few examples here
I hope you have deigned to hear
Such things as make for happiness
And to the restful heart are near