The Arrangement

By Peter Bowden


She arranged the flowers in the morning, just after coffee. The light was soft and golden through the porch arches, the kind of light that made even the dust look holy. She didn’t trim the stems evenly—let them tilt and wander the way wild things do. Zinnias, snapdragons, larkspur, strawflower. Some bent from their own weight, others leaned out as if reaching for a story. She had grown them herself and cut them with hands still wet from watering the garden.

By afternoon, the glass vase caught sun like a prism. Bees skirted the porch, curious but polite. The arrangement wasn't meant to be perfect—too many colors, too much movement—but it breathed. It remembered wind. The blooms seemed to hold old conversations: quiet apologies, garden laughter, the hush between thunder and rain. She sat near them, not to admire, but to be near something that understood change without needing to say a word.

When the evening came and shadows stretched long over the porch floorboards, she didn’t move the flowers inside. She left them where they were, in the hush of the coming night, trusting the stars to do what water could not.


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