A Windowsill Memento

A Windowsill Memento

"Memento Mori" 

I watched it start a seed surrounded:

Surrounded by soil, the brittle blue rocks

That came in the bag, and (when I remembered to look)

A bath of lukewarm water.

                                            It grew up grounded

In houseplant love, the love of windowsill sunlight

And eager eyes just willing it to grow;

A love that only seeds and children truly know.

From there it shot up seemingly overnight

And stood up proudly, puffing out its blooming chest

Like youth who scoff at death

Or laugh at the thought of mortality.

Its sole reality

Was youth and life and the now,

With no sense of trepidation for days to come

Or fearful thoughts of where or how

It’d find its needed sustenance.

And then I watched it blossom

And finally fade,

Changing its youthful countenance

As time began to perform its skin-changing trick

That always seems to take us by surprise.  

But through its impending death it left behind

A finger-full of little seeds I picked

From off its wrinkled face

To plant anew and watch again from the start,

My daily reminders of the transience of life

That's demonstrated by nature's art.