Poems About Flowers and Mothers for Love, Gratitude, and Connection

You planted marigolds
beside the gate,
where visitors could see
what you had saved.
All summer, their orange faces
turned toward the road.
I thought they welcomed us.
Now I think they were watching
for whoever needed to come home.

No ribbon.
No card with gold edges.
Just the stems wrapped in paper
that darkens where they drink.
You hold the bouquet
as if it has arrived tired,
and loosen the fold.
By evening, the flowers stand
in the old jam jar,
less like a gift
than a room they can stay in.

You taught me foxglove:
not bell, not glove,
but a word with weather in it,
leaning above the wall.
When rain came,
you tied each stalk
with green thread.
I still think of your hands
whenever something tall
begins to bend.

The first year I left,
you sent me seeds in a folded envelope,
small as punctuation.
I put them in a pot outside my rented room,
where the wind found every weak thing.
You said sweet peas liked something to climb.
I found a broken cane,
tied it upright with a shoelace,
and waited.
Nothing happened for weeks.
Then one morning, green had taken hold.
Not beautifully. Not yet.
A thin reach around a crooked support.
I sent you a photograph.
You replied with three words:
They’ve found their way.
The flowers came later,
pale, fragrant, almost too delicate
for the balcony that made them.
I kept the window open all night,
though the room was cold.

You say the geranium needs less water.
I say the soil is dry.
You press one finger into the pot
and produce evidence.
This is how we have discussed
money, weather, my hair,
the correct way to load a dishwasher.
The plant sits between us,
red as a small flare,
enduring our expertise.
You take it to the sill.
I move it back from the glass.
Neither of us says sorry.
At lunch, you cut a tomato
into exact, generous pieces.
I eat the one you slide toward me.
By afternoon, the geranium has opened
another flower.
We call this proof
of nothing at all.

The vase stayed in the cupboard
through January,
behind the plates we use for guests.
Its neck had a faint white mark
from years of stems.
You would have noticed it,
turned the glass toward the light,
called it nothing to worry about.
In March, I bought tulips.
They were closed when I carried them home,
all blunt heads and green refusal.
I placed them in your vase
and filled it too high.
Water spread across the table.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
The tulips opened overnight.
By morning, each one had chosen
its own direction.
I did not correct them.
The room looked untidy.
The room looked like you.

At the station, the lavender
kept touching strangers.
A sleeve. A briefcase. The knee
of a child asleep against the window.
I held it higher,
as if scent could ask permission.
Three stops later,
a woman opposite me said,
Your mother will like that.
I said yes.
What I meant was:
she likes purple,
she likes things that last,
she likes the story of a plant
that survives the dry hillside.
What I meant was:
I have not seen her since Christmas,
and the train is moving
in the wrong direction
for every explanation I rehearsed.
At the final stop,
the lavender had shed
one small flower on my coat.
I left it there.

Do not fuss over it.
Do not stand there
with your little jug,
asking what it needs.
The poppy has survived
worse than your attention.
It has crossed the fence,
ignored the slug,
opened its red mouth
at the exact hour
it was ready.
You will want to stake it.
You will want to save the petals.
You will want to photograph
what cannot be kept.
Leave it.
Let the wind take credit.
Let the seed fall
where the paving breaks.
Next year, your mother says,
you’ll see.
She is speaking to the flower.
She is speaking to you.
Neither of you agrees.

You judge the roses by their scent,
not their medals.
You pass the winning bloom
and stop beside a crooked one,
its outer petals bruised,
one leaf carrying a brown thumbprint.
This one, you say.
The hall is closing.
Chairs scrape the floor.
A volunteer folds the banners
with the patience of someone
who has done this every year.
Outside, the car park shines.
Rain has settled in the painted lines.
You carry nothing home.
No ribbon, no cutting,
no perfect specimen under glass.
Still, in the passenger seat,
you keep turning your hands over,
as though the fragrance
might have followed.

The window box has gone wild.
Basil, nasturtium, one stubborn violet,
and something you did not plant.
You would pull it out.
You would say a garden
cannot be a collection of permissions.
But I let it stay.
The unknown stem has made a yellow flower,
small enough to miss
unless the curtains are open.
This morning, I hear you
in the scrape of the bin,
in the tap running too long,
in the question you always asked
before I left the house:
Have you taken a coat?
The flower turns toward the room.
I turn toward the street.
Neither of us knows
what the weather will do.