I yanked a chunk of the sage up by its roots
when I left.
Though I abandoned half my clothes, my parents’ china cabinet, my photo albums 
(so many things that wouldn’t fit in my tiny rental apartment)
the sage
was coming with me.
The sum of my life vision after finally escaping the city 
          (house, garden, happily-ever-after)
          now embodied by this scraggly plant.
Sloppily potted outside my back door, it alternated between droop and weary lean
through the fall
while inside I unpacked, stared, stumbled through the amorphous unknown.
By winter it was a fist of grey sticks
and I barely noticed its apparent demise
or when the maintenance guys tossed the pot aside amidst the snow piles.
In the transiting months of unfurling time
it must have simply laid in wait
while I did anything but lay still
          – my frenzied exploration was clumsy and drunken and shocking and euphoric
          but rarely quiet –
An entire adulthood
torn from its roots
steadily finding new ground.
Now June
barefoot dreaming in the dandelions
I spot a purple flower among newly spreading green leaves
and I know
there’s not one right way
to endure.
         
          6/3/26