Teeming With Potential

I have a friendship with a Christmas cactus. Most mornings for the last 5 years, she’s joined me in my kitchen nook as I sip tea.

Since the cactus grows so little during the year, I sometimes think of her as a biomorphic sculpture. The rugged perfection of her flat, serrated stem segments that extend into space resemble paws joined one to the other like a bracelet.

As the days grow shorter, she makes my life more joyous when she blooms each November and December. We mark time together.

Life spills out of her on her annual visits. Graceful magenta flowers, each with 6 petals, unfurl and fade away each week. The cactus embodies change and recurrent emergence.

Presence

what is it like to live for a week?

your conception
a display of beauty and potential
followed by shrinking and decay

will you return next year?

roommates for years
we share oxygen and sunlight

I breathe
we matter