Forget-me-Nots

I'd seen them in books and Victorian postcards,
the way one sees something magical like a griffin
or unicorn, a dreamy symbol, alive more in the imagination
than in person--but then in the spring I came upon them
and they seemed so delicate and so tiny. I could imagine
embroidering their blue-stars into the empire seam
of a pink dress, as though light begins as it falls from them.
And so I picked two, furtively, hoping to press them into a book. I treasured them into my pocket and walked on into the twilight. But when I got home, my fingers could not find them and I thought they had fallen--but then a little crumb and I pulled it out with my nail and it was the flower, shrunk to a pinhead, black like dirt.

And now I understand in a way I couldn't have before: that it's about the connection. Taken away from its bond, its touch to earth, it vanishes and all the life and color is gone. No wonder then the ladies sewed them onto handkerchiefs for their beloved when they left...for it is to say, the beauty of life is this connection, hold fast...

and love, love, and remember
and by remembering, keep this flower.