you bend to touch the jasmine.
I watch from the gate,
keeping distance like a promise.
your fingers in the soil—
learning what I can't teach:
how things die back
and return anyway.
the garden takes everything:
bloom, rot, the seeds we didn't mean to plant.
I want to keep you on this side of the earth,
above ground,
where I can still watch you
bend toward beauty.
but you're already touching
what will outlast us both—
you don't look up.
the jasmine doesn't need my permission.
neither do you.