Considering the Way of the Flower

Last week, I saw two thumb-sized yellow crocuses in an empty garden, one block from my house in The Beaches. They were surrounded by wooden chips that cover the soil—a splash of bright against dark. Four raindrops rolled off their smooth petals, which were open, like cupped hands. I hovered over them, pointed my Canon to capture their beauty. Then I considered their ways, just like Luke says (cf. Luke 12:27, 28):

Who taught you to open your hands so wide? 
And why do you look up to the sky as though expecting something, yellow flowers? 
Did you like the rain last night? I see that you’ve kept some of it on your skin. 
Raindrops look good on you.

Where did you learn to smile so completely? 
Can you teach me where to store away my worries,
so that I too can have empty hands, yet a smile? 
Teach me—can you?—how to keep my palms open and my face towards the sky, 

At least sometimes, how to plant my feet into a single soil.
Teach me how to bloom in my place when nothing blooms beside me, 
When all that surrounds me are dark wood chips. 
Teach me—can you?—how to bloom, even if I am the only thing that has been planted in an otherwise naked garden. 

Are you migrant flowers? 
Do you wish that you could get out of that soil and walk away to some other place? 
Would you bloom the same? 
What of your home, of that soil, would you take with you?

Their response to me was always the same: beauty, openness, invitation.

I stood alone on that sidewalk, naked of all socially distancing human souls, thinking about all that these flowers were saying. We—they and I— share an isolation imposed; the crocuses by whoever planted them there, and I by COVID-19, which has uprooted my daily routine. When I have finished my walk, I will return to my place where I must stay—alone—as they have been standing since their bloom. 

They are blooming in their isolation. Will I also bloom in mine? Will I also respond with beauty, openness, and invitation, even after reading the news? Will I also, always remember to entrust my life to the source of all things? 

Text & Photo: Jasmine Hamilton