The stem stands tall,
A pillar of stability.
Of sustenance.
Reliable, trustworthy,
Vital.
To the flower, at least.
To the gardener it is a mere inconvenience,
For clippers to solve, but only because they make a
Clean cut.
If he were in a rush he might just as easily
Take it with his hands, rip and
Tear,
And crush the life right out.
The petals swell, glowing with beauty,
Broad and thick and luxurious.
Pigment pops out of them in prima donna excess,
Swaying gracefully in lavish exuberance,
Caressed by the exhaling wind.
They beg to be picked out,
mock everything in the vicinity;
Their fatal flaw is hubris
And they don’t even know it.
All are vying to be chosen,
Reaching ever higher
Swelling in abundance
Indescribably beautiful.
Indescribably vulnerable.
Utterly naive.
The gardener is thirty minutes late.
To orchids, it makes no difference.
To orchids, time is malleable:
It lasts as long as they will
In this object-oriented ontology.
Time is infinite, and so are they,
Infinitely growing infinitely fuelled
By an infinite Sun
Bestowing gifts, everlasting, onto
Dreaming petals,
Mesmerising and mesmerised frozen
In heavenly stasis,
In a reverie that lasts forever.
How could the world be any other way?
Why would it be?
The gardener is in a rush.
He has lost his clippers.
The orchids are pretty as ever, and
They stare up at the falling Sun in devotion,
So concerned with the stars so
Blissfully unaware of the world in its present.
Of the gardener’s hands.
An orange sunset burns across the sky.
Flowers fall together.
Stems crack.
Lifeblood oozes.
Bursts from clawed lacerations.
Petals drift to the ground.
Decay blooms in familiar colours.
Rot.
Blight.
A bouquet of flowers sits in a shop window.
The gardener makes a note to buy new clippers.
Somewhere, in an eternalist fourth dimension,
On a plane far removed,
a flower reaches up to the Sun.
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