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.