seeing in between
summer is ending </3
tell me about your city.
how the jacaranda trees adorn the monotonous streets,
lilac in spring and green in summer.
its roots never stop growing and by august,
all the delicate cone shaped flowers have shedded.
sitting on the dry grass right after a horrible exam while waiting for the bus,
I remember using the fallen leaflets as confetti,
throwing them on you, to celebrate something so silent, something so mundane:
having company.
just 30 minutes away comes the lake,
where you can almost feel your arms embracing
a hug with the wild.
how the sunlight dances
ever so elegantly on the water ripples, and soon,
everything that weighed you down starts to rise from your shoulders simultaneously as the sun sets.
can everything be as golden as honey if you look closer?
in the souq,
an elderly woman sits under a large umbrella,
drinking her qahwa with dates.
with great determination,
her tender hands delicately string marigolds and bougainvillea on a metal wire.
under those black gloves,
her fingerprints are maps to hidden gardens,
home to sweet nectar and butterflies.
I wonder if she lets anyone visit.
somewhere on the other side of my city,
the entire region is made of large igneous rocks.
it's the way the Creator meticulously placed each red boulder on top of each other,
the smooth holes forming in between them,
the way the limestone erodes with the rain to reveal colourful pebbles.
the baboons, lizards and mynahs ruling over the area.
desert roses, globe-thistles and nightshades growing in between the smallest lava rock cracks,
because the thing is, love grows in areas you least expect.
this place was a sea, millions of years ago.
I think about the boats, the drowned people who could be underneath these volcanic rocks.
I think about the marine life, the species we have never seen.
when the clouds swell up in the sky over the barren mountains,
wait for me.
we'll climb up the ladder together,
we'll visit the skies and
we'll notice the shapes the blue parts make.
we'll see in between the clouds.
we'll find love everywhere.
love,
afifa





That's a lot of plants. I can only think of yellow birdsfoot and dog-strangline vine right now. Good stuff, keep observing and keep writing!
This is beautiful!