Alive

In a small clay pot by the window

I kept her alive

Every morning when I left the house

She sat there alone

watching the clouds drift by my soul-sky.

She waited for me to come back

Sometimes the sun came

and then the dusk,

Then the wind, the night,

the hail and the heartbreak.

Sometimes I didn’t come.

She was tiny, feeble, weak.

But at last when I came home

empty-handed, defeated

I softly kissed her brooding leaves

And she forgave me everytime.

And when I lied down beside her

closing my eyes

battling my scars

She quietly bent down and caressed my forehead…

For seven years

I kept her alive

And she kept me.