Last year’s pretty, porcelain pot was perfect, roomy, plenty of space for her roots to settle, to meander through miracle soil soaking in tap water and raindrops. She thrived as all good potted plants are want to do, her emerald plumes leaning east toward dawn, she grew and bloomed and grew, white-tongued symbols of peace pushing from her shoots, cocoons at first, to sleepy side-eyes, opening, her prickly heart revealing…then spring, then summer…

then COVID, sheltering in, mask-clad fear-ashed faces, black souls rising from blood spattered bedrooms and spit-stained asphalt, covered in flowers, trampled by broken, fierce legions chanting, ‘ENOUGH’ under tear-gas curtains peppered with rubber bullets, vigilantes, anonymous armies looting, rising from hell to disturb the peace, hurricanes, floods, shuttered storefronts, the dead stuffed into frozen trailers, not enough soil to contain them, mourners left to mourn in absentia, single file food lines doling out bread…lies upon lies

It took only two seasons for her roots to tangle, clinging tightly to pretty pot’s edges, only two seasons for her leaves to tinge yellow, her skirt of fading fronds to wilt under the confining walls of porcelain that once cradled her. She needed my intervention, clearly unable to move, to thrive, to breathe. What a journey it has been from beaker to pot to pot to pot, and yet still, she blooms, despite my oblivious tending, despite my errant caretaking, she blooms as if to remind me that she is, and refuses to stop.

in November, I will vote

I found another pot, a roomier pot, filled it with miracle soil, untangled her roots and set her gently down in it. We will likely cross this bridge again in a season or two or more…because that’s what peace lilies do…they grow.

~kat

So this is what happens when the muse returns and the dam bursts after months of holding in, holding on. Peace my friends.