The Life Artist: Camellia on Pool Water, Christmas Eve, 2019
©2019, Vincent Hostak
From now forward
when I’m called to think
of christmas eve
it will be a camellia on pool water
which first appears.
Snowdrifts and holly crowns,
will always have their place.
But winter comes in many shades.
Stories are shared.
Each tell: how it all began,
how we changed,
became better or were saved.
All of it water from our favored wells,
channels tied to the same true spring,
quenching the same blessed thirst.
I can’t know with any certainty
if this flower moved itself,
leaving the protective shade,
of magnolias planted near,
like a life artist
building this hopeful new myth.
I’d like to think it was courage.
I’d like to think it was faith.
I’d like to think that all
things share a conciousness-
a will to move to better states.
That we possess all the grace
we need at times as these.
Even the flowers must find a way.
Perhaps, it was just a December storm
that shook the branches,
cast the flower to the water
along with leaves that frame it here.
Whatever is the truth,
or madness, if you think it so,
come every Christmas Eve,
i will first see
a weightless and magenta dream
the blue arena, the cords of sunlight,
and the rewards of bearing witness
on one December day.
This is truly beautiful. I’ve re-read it so many times and it just moves something in me every time.
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Thanks for these kind words and I’m glad it has an impact for you. That flower actually sailed off a neighboring shrub onto a pool in Baton Rouge. It was there days later and may be there still. Who cleans a pool in winter? I’ve been witness to so much heroism that doesn’t make headlines- taken in what many might call measured and personal ways–with “Life Artistry.” I was looking for a way to honor this idea on Christmas Eve and it found me.
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