What is friendship but the ground beneath
the melting snow, the earth that is present
regardless of drift or grass or garden or wasteland.
A friendship is a flower that thrives
whether it is watered or not.
It is the flame that cooks the soup and does not ask
to be included on the menu as an ingredient.
And it burns through months, through decades,
burns, long after one might have thought the fuel
would have run out.
It would seem like a miracle, the way true friendship
survives, except it’s so commonplace—
the persistent warmth, the inextinguishable glow.
And if friends are torn apart—perhaps by years,
perhaps by circumstance—what is friendship then
but an enormous vase with a wide enough mouth
to hold those separate stems over space, over time,
and still call them a bouquet.
This poem is such a wonderful analogy for friendship. I have two friends that I rarely see because they live in TN and I moved to MI about 32 years ago. (They don’t really know each other.) So I can go long stretches without even talking to them but then we do have share a call or one of us writes a letter or card and it’s like we’ve always been together.
That happened to my mom, too. She had a group of five friends right after high school. They drifted apart due to families and such then in their 60s they got together again and had lunch together every week. So sweet.
So your poem brings back such good feelings and memories. Thanks, Rosemerry.
Thanks, LuAnne … yes, I think that we can have these heart friends that transcend time and space … of course not all friendships can sustain this way, but oh, the ones that do … like wildflowers, blooming despite. xo