Ode to an African Violet

You, thou easiest of plants to foster, there with your innocent purple faces turned skyward
Green leaves reaching out for sustenance, so trusting and earnest, by experience yet unbetrayed;

For months you should enjoy the sun's kiss, forever in bloom,
Casting your cheerful glow about the room;

But yet you have no limbs, your leaves can only capture light
Just as love, it's not enough, there must be more; there must be water

And while your caretaker remembered three, four, six, a dozen, two dozen times
Eventually your novelty wore thin and his carelessness waxed

Day by day your earnest leaves drooped in sorrow
Your flowers lost their violet lustre

And saddened but wiser, you surrendered back into the soil
From which you came.