The city that never sleeps, they said.
I stood amid the crowd,
sipping coffee,
bracing myself to examine corporate funds.
The flowers had begun to bloom,
as if to remind me of her favorite season.
Then came a call,
pulling me from blooms to sorrow.
Today, I return to my childhood home,
ten years after drifting from place to place.
I walk to the end of the silent, endless hallway
and the door creaks open like a memory refusing to fade.
Inside, the air is earthy and, aged,
rising from dusted wooden frames.
I remember her feeding me baked dough by hand,
while mine stayed clean.
I sink into the leather couch.
My fingers brush dust her photo.
I glance toward the window, and whisper:
“Mother, have you arrived yet?”
I rise and bump into a shelf,
catching an old, worn book.
Its weathered cover opens,
and a photo of her slips softly to my feet.
I pull the book's ribbon,
which takes me to a stained and torn page.
Folded quietly beside her kitchen’s bread recipe,
there, penned by her careful hand:
“Could I be the one,
a teacher, like rain that nourishes the earth,
where seedlings sprout,
as a sturdy ground to grow?
Could I be the one,
to plant the seeds of knowing,
in soil still fresh with dew,
where the quest for truth takes root?
Could I be the one,
to watch them reach for the sunlight,
as every question builds a nestled bud,
waiting to blossom radiantly in the garden?
But then, a seed of my own, arrived.
She found her first ground within my arms,
stirring my wish, burying a garden I once dreamed,
to bloom only you, my heart.
I tucked away my dreams to sow the garden of knowledge,
choosing to cradle this fragile, unrooted seed from heaven.
Now, with flour-stained hands, I plant you tenderly in silence,
could I be the one, your quiet friend beneath the sun?
Now my little bloom has opened wide,
as butterflies gather near.
As her petals settle where the wind leads,
could I be the one, the home where the wind leads to?”
Outside, the green trees have started to turn yellow.
She’s always been with me,
but where was I for her?
