Late summer rain soothes
sunburnt topsoil
with a foretaste of winter.
Overnight, the drip, drip, drip
pools together
in a stone walkway’s sagging middle.
The liquid surface mirrors a single
spectabalis bloom,
monochroming its magenta glory
into humorless gray.
Who am I? The flower or its reflection?
Slowing down to the speed of drizzle,
I ponder what of me is just a
temporary reflection.
I am the puddle.
I am provisional, a process in the process
of changing, moment to moment. Every life-drop
forever reshapes the contours of my brief reservoir,
an ever-morphing flow that has no fixed essence.
Someday, I too will be drawn up, drop by drop, into the heavens.
The confused puddle sees itself as static, separate, and in need of constant protection.
As evaporation runs its course, anxious puddles fear the unrelenting sun’s upward pull.
The awakened puddle accepts what is, and
surrendering into the firmament’s cloud nursery,
Knows itself to be eternal.