You must be angry to grow these flowers.
Maybe there is someone who doesn't love you anymore. You are waiting for that person to love you again. Every morning you wake up and hope. Maybe a text today. Maybe an invitation to dinner. And then, at night, you go to bed with your book. Your phone nearby.
You don't need an apology. You don't even need to talk about it. How's your day? Did you see the last episode of Dancing With the Stars? Would you like to drive to the farm stand? The last corn on the cob of the season is the sweetest.
You're not sad. Not anymore. Sadness doesn't grow flowers well. Sadness keeps you in the shed, cleaning the tools. Maybe you can mow. You can grow the easy plants like hostas and azaleas when you're sad.
Plants like lantana take time, at least in Ohio. They can thrive here, but it's not by chance. You mulch with pine needles and you cut back all the deadheads. You have to be vigilant, active, willing to dig and worry and tend.
You may say you just love them, that it's not so hard. But that's what anger does when we construct with it. When we let it burn in our arms until we have to plunge them into the stems and blossoms around us, we can coax out a furious beauty. We study it. We hope.
An angry hope, but hope still.
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