The Color of Life

My wife likes to say, upon returning home from a trip, “My nest is best.” But my first question is always, “How are the plants?” Here is a stream of consciousness expression of that experience of both leaving and returning home.

A flower is the color of life

a yellow lily blooms

the purple buds curl round

the green stem reaches

the sky is gray but

the car is white

snow on the way today

before we take flight

to where the sun always shines

and lizards sometimes fall

through the white clouds

we fly over the mountains

as the green plants in the study

grow ever so slowly

as if we had never been

away with the gators

crawling dust on the table

and I know the guitar

is out of tune once again

but nothing has moved

the flowers still cast

a sweet substance that lasts

the color of life.