Impatiens

Posted on January 11, 2003 in Hope and Joy

The mind seizes symbols when it needs them.

Last week’s foehns stripped ever leaf and every flower from the impatiens on our deck and reduced them to nothing more than green stems. Now, four days later, a few new leaves have appeared and four or five white, purple, and red flowers puff out of the stems.

“You can strip us, take everything we have, but you cannot kill us. We will survive, we will endure.”