A node has auxiliary buds—

possibility folded into the curve of a stem,

quietly waiting.

You sent one to me,

wrapped in moist paper,

tender and trembling with more

than plant life.

You called it a cutting,

but I knew it as something else:

a gesture

of hope,

a soft offering—

maybe even a test.

A node, you said,

forms adventitious roots

when exposed to moisture.

It adapts.

It learns where it is,

and decides to grow anyway.

I held it carefully.

Not just for what it was,

but for what it meant.

You trusted me

with something

that had no guarantees.

And I—

with hands still shaky from forgetting how to care—

placed it in water,

watched the light touch its edges.

Waited.

I remember what else you sent:

a photo.

Not of leaves,

not instructions,

but invitation.

Proof that you, too,

have tried to grow

in uncertain places.

There’s science in this,

yes—

auxin streaming through the cut,

telling it how to become.

But there’s longing, too.

And memory.

And the silent ache

of those who send roots

before they’re sure they’ll take.

What grows from this

isn’t wild.

It’s chosen.

It’s tended.

A bloom that defies timing—

not early,

not late,

but entirely

different.

And in this soft experiment

between leaf and breath,

I begin to believe again:

in trust,

in tending,

in the slow miracle

of being held,

and still—

becoming.