IV. Lotus

IV. Lotus

I think of it sometimes

as a lotus.

Roots buried in black water.

Mud gripping everything

beneath the surface.

Then the slow climb upward—

through pressure,

through cold,

through whatever lives unseen

in the pond.

At the top

the flower opens cleanly

as if untouched.

But the bloom depends

entirely on what fed it below.

Ignore the roots

and the stem weakens.

Break the stem

and the petals collapse inward.

Meaning works this way too.

A sentence spoken aloud

rests on years of memory.

A belief rests on repetition.

A gesture rests on hunger,

history, imitation.

What appears graceful

often has dark foundations.

Attention travels through all of it—

mud, water, flower—

keeping each layer connected

to the others.