Flowerman
In the Solomon Islands there is a mountain, that you can see from any side of the shore. And its slopes are low and easy to climb, so if you walk up the hill a ways, on the northern side, you will see a meadow on a little flat spot about halfway up the mountain. This meadow, I saw it when I was a child; and my father's father saw it when he was a child; and his father's father's father saw it when he was a child. It's a place that sidesteps the gaze of not-children, hidden between the crags of rock.
There, in the neverdying meadow, there is a little old man, bent at the waist, who waters his flowers. The flowers riot in colors, iridescent and gleaming in the water, and they draw the children close. And if you speak to him, the little old man will smile at you, and give you a flower.
These flowers do not die, you see. You can take them home, and set them on the mantle without water; their roots will spread and sink into the stone, or the metal, or concrete. They are flowers that will not die.
And when they blossom, their roots firmly set, they open the bud and a wonderful scent comes out, like rosemary and myrrh and frankincense, like a new prophet being born. And this smell, it calls to you, your neighbors, everyone. They come and stand before this little flower, of red or blue or yellow, bright and iridescent.
And then in a couple days, the flower dies, and the child is no longer a child; the innocence stolen away by this lesson of life and death the flower teaches. It is a ritual of learning in the village; and when we are ready to die, the elderly worn and weak, we make this trek up the mountain, to the little old man and his flowers, and they are seen no more. Into the crags and the scent of rosemary, they vanish like pollen.
We here in the village, we live by the flowerman. He teaches us to grow, prunes us in our age. He is the flowerman and we are all his flowers.
He has no shears, just fingers as old as the earth and a weary, ancient patience. The flowers never die, they just pass on their seeds. And he tends them over and over, or so I supppose: I've only seen the flowerman once, after all.
But soon I'll go to see this meadow again, because my bones ache and it's hard to stand, so hard. And I want to go to the garden and lay down, and kiss the flowers, and give up my seeds.
I'll go to see that meadow again, where there's a quiet smile, and a little old man, and a garden of flowers that never die.
At least until we touch them.