Another bit of writing I've just started working on

Children's stories are full of late bloomers:

the ugly duckling, cinderella, sleeping beauty,

snow white, and various enchanted beasts & frogs

& bears who turn out to be handsome princes.

The message is clear:

don't despair, you may feel

out of place, ugly, unappreciated, thwarted by enemies

and jealous old people, but at just the right time

something magical will happen

and you will get what you deserve:

your rightful beauty, a place in the palace,

perfect love.

You go on about your life,

holding in the back of your mind the idea

that you will be a late bloomer,

And then you realize that the time for blooming

is past.

You show no hints of latent buds

curled tight and waiting for just enough

light and heat to unfurl and dazzle the world

with opulent petals and heavenly scent; no,

no signs of that.

But you're not dead or even dying,

no symptoms of underwatering or overwatering,

not weak or struggling for survival.

Rather, you are sturdy and strong, robust,

with the light green foliage of new growth

apparent at the tip of every limb.

You wonder, "Is my blossoming still

so far off? How many more branches and leaves

do I need before I burst

into bloom?"

It occurs to you that perhaps you are not

a flowering species at all,

but maybe an evergreen oak or pine.

What you offer the world is not

beauty or sweetness, but respite from the heat,

shelter from the storm, a haven for small creatures.

And then you're inspired by the image,

turning it into a thing of beauty: the lone pine,

silhouetted on the hill, a beacon, a signpost, a symbol

of continuity and endurance and wisdom.

Or maybe you are the one oak left downtown amidst the sky-

scrapers, near the corner of Broadway and Grand,

in front of Louisiana Chicken, which itself is looking a little

like an ugly duckling these days, dwarfed and outclassed

by the mighty glass and steel structures

that are going to (finally) revitalize downtown.

Yes, maybe that's you—

small and unnoticed, but holding your roots firm, reminding passersby

that this land once belonged to you, a reminder to others, too, of their own

true wild nature, a breath of green in the urban gray.

But, no, you're not that tree either. You know it.

You're too idiosyncratic to be symbolic.

An awful little thought skitters like a mouse across the floor

of your mind: "What if I was, in fact, an early bloomer?

What if my heyday is behind me? What if I've already

made all the impact I'm going to make?" You think of the poinsettia

put outside after Christmas.

You chase this notion out of sight behind the futon in your mind.

You're drawn back to the flowering plants.

What are you really waiting for?

The desire to bloom, the hope of being a late bloomer, is the wish

to confirm that you are not alone, that your life impinges upon others,

that it intersects, connects, affects, interrupts. You want to know

that you are not merely a drop of water sliding off other people's slickers.

You want to touch skin. You want to bloom

profusely & abundantly, or rarely and with great fanfare, like the titan arum lily

or the kurinji plant. You want to make an impression, to touch hearts.

You want to know that you'll be remembered, not so much

after you die, as after you leave the room, because there is that nagging

question of whether you really exist

in other people's minds.