Once upon a time there was a flower.
A flower shy and nervous and quivering.
The flower had waited, waited month after month, to step out of its covers and shine colour up onto the sun.
The flower was timid.
Other flowers would break the soil and rush upwards into the light.
Like stars on the ground they grew contained in self-fascination.
They grew
and grew
and bloomed.
And died.
And our flower quivered.
it quivered.
How many other flowers had it seen grow and bloom and dissapear with the wind and the rain and the night.
many flowers it had seen dissapear without trace (only maybe with the taste of their absence in the ground).
Water sipped through our flowers roots and through it our flower listened
attentively
to the death and life and dreams of evey flower that had once been
a flower
in this field.
and the flower
remained,
silent and covered and waiting.
Waiting anxiously to be taken by the wind and the rain and the night.
Yet it didn’t bloom so the wind and the rain and the night patiently waited and waited and waited for the flower to sprout from the endless stream
of time...
One day the flower sneezed.
And from its sneeze grew dew
drops
and the dew drops
they
d
r
i
p
p
e
d
they
d
r
i
p
p
e
d
they dripped into the covers of the flower.
The droplets were cold and moist and caressed the inside of its folded petals and the flower thought
and it quivered
and it trembled
oh, our flower.
The dew drops dried and the water vapor pushed with gentle pressure against the membranes of the flower’s walls
the petals. one by one of a shy flower were revealed. And every petal was a different color and its smell was of winter.
A winter flower born in spring.
Delayed, late and formed against itself. The flower was like nothing the field had seen and the bees and the birds were curious and confused and the crocodiles and butterflies laughed at the
trembling
flower
and our flower saw the sun
and the sun smiled
said “ w e l c o m e ” and the flower smiled and opened its centre.
the hummingbird drank its sweet and ripened substance
and for the first time the flower felt
it was alive
it was alive
and so it decided
dying
was not
all in all
so bad.
it said (after some weeks or months or years, we don’y know anymore) it is good.
and it thought “death was born when i was born, and when I go, it will go with me too.”
and the flower smiled
and gave its colors
and its droplets of nectar
and has
since then
lived in
form
&
memory
into the rug
there is nothing better (said the florist) than running out of flowers
save that you oft tread pollen
after every rehearsal we left ‘pinna was ear’ scrawled across the whiteboard in the practice room,
after a number of fictitious song titles which we hadn’t rehearsed
after a while we decided to take those words
and scrawled a record across them
fade
(grow)