Dead Flower | Mark Lindsay
A withered flower on the patio made me stop and look up. Up there I saw nothing. Just sky. Cloudless, it framed the flower with the glow of its light. The flower had become a ghost. It was only a few days ago that it was in full bloom. Then it just died, its rapid dacay remarkable.
Sometimes I wish the dark side of my memory were like the flower. I wish it would yield its essence and return to earth. My old ghosts keep coming back, refusing to decompose. Imagine a garden where the dead flowers stand tall and won't return to the ground. I suspect our memories are that way. Like dead soldiers, they stand tall—and march their way around our brains. Regal and proud, stale memories are the grasp of the ego; our story, for better or worse.
I walk around the dead flower and photograph it. Lately my camera has been my salvation, the thing I need to release myself from the dialog in my head. I smile and look up again. I use a Lens Baby to blur and selectively tell the story of this lovely artifact of the garden. An hour later the flower finds its way into the compost bin. Playing like God, we make our own dirt. Too bad some of my old memories aren't more like mulch. They could use a good churning.