Poem: The Gift

The Gift

Bought from a nursery, a plant of yellow everlastings, so papery they almost speak. Sometimes you buy a gift you do not want to give. Prior to its wrapping, it sits on your kitchen table, reminding you of garden shows, spring festivals, country roads and fields of flowers like an endless basket, a soothing tapestry. The gift’s previous life tingled with the touch of water, a breeze above its roots; stems reached tall above the variegated pinks, creams and lilacs. The selection sat in a cultivated paddock beside grazing horses, their noses snorting into the wire. The moment the flowers were uprooted from the field they were pruned, pounded and potted. Unperfumed perfection. But you had to give it over. Their green leaves and little yellow faces marked for celebration, the smell of birthday cake. Tiny golden fingers orchestrated inside a yellow pot, budding and growing - open by day, closed at night.