by Heather Bartos
Jade plants will never win beauty contests.
Snub-nosed, squat, solid-thighed,
Pudgy limbs and squinty little blossoms.
But deep roots and thick flesh
Gather what guarantees survival,
What grants longevity.
Absorb every drop of hope,
Each ray of encouragement,
All words of praise.
Slice a leaf, snap a branch
And it will heal itself whole again,
Scar and stump the only sign.
Its own replenishment, resource, retreat,
A deep, wide wealth of well,
A barn full of grain for swallows in the snow.
Current life from yesterday’s rain,
From last summer’s sun,
Dense from receiving and holding of the giving.
How amazing to hold within and inside
Memories of kindness
To shade and shield from the heat
To insulate and inoculate against the cold
Until without and outside
Become a friend once more.
Heather Bartos lives near Portland, Oregon, and writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her writing has been published in Miniskirt Magazine, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, Stoneboat Literary Journal, Porcupine Literary, You Might Need To Hear This, and The Dillydoun Review, and upcoming in Scapegoat Review and The Closed Eye Open.
