the plant you gave me finally died

I watered it, and admired its red flowers – the things it had to offer to the world.  I never reproached it that it was not nourishing, nor was it scented.

I watered it when it was dry – but it’s summer, you kind of expect even a plant to have some built in endurance for the ups and downs in warmth and cold.

It’s strange to give up on a living thing, to say it doesn’t matter anymore.

I wondered whether I should maybe keep watering the pot, maybe the roots were living and would resprout if I had enough hope.  But I didn’t want to.  The plant is dead for me.  It’s not going in the compost, I don’t want to absorb its matter through eating the lettuces or spinach.

The shell of a pot and few stringy roots are leaving.  If someone else fancies them then that’s their journey – theirs and the plant’s.

And in the space on my window sill I can put something that I actually always wanted: jasmine, or purple pansies, or tall chive flowers.  Texture and colour and smell.  Not show.

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