after my haiku "for those late to blooming," the gardener's gloved hands move slowly when he packs a new plant into place. it's a white and indigo columbine this time, petals all fanned out like a threatened cobra. over time the stem will droop, and the color will blacken, and we'll know it's time to discover the next specimen that will take its place. flowers have always been fickle things, despite the fact that there are always small, compact mounds of soil carefully crafted to hug their tiny, delicate roots which can gain nutrition from anything, from tipping buckets to thunderstorms out of zeus' myth (original: when it's all over we'll discover that flowers were crafted from myth)