Flowery Memories

Artichokes, when ignored,

turn into flowers

Sunflowers

As I feel a deep ache for Mom, and the pain she has suffered,
I think of flowers and colors.
Flowers, because she so loves flowers
and nature, and nature's beauty.
Colors, because she took tubes of oil paints
and painstakingly squirted a dabs of paint on her palette,
mixing with the brush as she worked them into
new colors
and laid them down on the canvas,
the smell of oils and turpentine in our nostrils,
I loved to watch her do that.