The Flower of Mending
by Vachel Lindsay
(To Eudora, after I had had certain dire adventures.)
When Dragon-fly would fix his wings,
When Snail would patch his house,
When moths have marred the overcoat
Of tender Mister Mouse,
The pretty creatures go with haste
To the sunlit blue-grass hills
Where the Flower of Mending yields the wax
And webs to help their ills.
The hour the coats are waxed and webbed
They fall into a dream,
And when they wake the ragged robes
Are joined without a seam.
My heart is but a dragon-fly,
My heart is but a mouse,
My heart is but a haughty snail
In a little stony house.
Your hand was honey-comb to heal,
Your voice a web to bind.
You were a Mending Flower to me
To cure my heart and mind.
" Friends are flowers in the garden of life. "
~Portuguese Proverb
Yesterday i had a wonderful time with someone very close to me. She is my cousin, my sister, my friend rolled into one. We had a lot of laughs talking about the kind of look we were avoiding (er, shunning) lest we look old and frumpy. We exchanged harmless barbs about ourselves...poke, poke, poking each other with jokes. The deeper things in our hearts were easily unwrapped and the strands of our current lives we unravelled comfortably.
I am blessed to have relationships like these. When i find myself in "certain dire adventures" and get bruised, i am mended by them. And the ordinary days become special -- those days where nothing tumultuous is happening, the cruising-along mode --- yet feeling alive because of the joy shared with friends.
