I picked a handful of flowers from the yard and ran to my mother in the garden
Look, I said, how these ones are white
when the others are blue. Look how
little the petals are. I opened my hand
to show her and cried when I saw
the tangle of root and stem. The dirt.
She washed them and put them
in a small vase. Washed my tears
and my dirt and set the flowers
gently on the windowsill.
She reminded me to be kind,
to love all living things even myself.
Reminded me it is good to love things
but not always good to carry them away.
How strange—memory
carrying away this of all things.
Doughty white forget-me-nots
dying in a pretty glass.
I want to clap loudly again.
I want to run wild through the yard.
I want to call out to my mother
look, I’ll say, I love you too
as a living thing. Look how
proud I am to become you
even though I swore I wouldn’t.
And I will carry you away
your roots, your tangled stems
even if I shouldn’t.
I’m not crying any longer, I’ll say
and look, my daughter is running
toward me even now—
her hand bunched in a
fist of flowers.
Greg Berlin