AS IF SHE WERE A PLANT

by Lisa Biggi

illustration by Isabella Grott

illustration by Isabella Grott

illustration by Isabella Grott

How much time I have wasted before I became a plant!
Now my feet sink in the soil which is damp and cosy, then dry, brown and friable, then yellow and hard. Solid.
The legs once clumsy and useless, now provide a shelter to the insects that play hide-and-seek behind my knees, a cricket tickles me with its feelers, my stem tingles but I don’t laugh with my own voice.
I have roots as fine as hair, they are a bride’s embroidery, the veins of an old man, where the story of a whole life slowly flows. Braided.
I don’t move but I am not still, if you look closely at me, I change a little from one season to another. In summer I bloom and the scent of my flowers cheers up romantic people and bees. My ideas have a delicate scent, that’s ok.
Sometimes I blossom even in winter, by mistake, when I am so happy that joy could make me climb up to the ceiling of your heart. But, then, winter must go on. And go on passing away.