Crushed Lavender

my heart follows your breaking
faint and floral 
beneath your gripped palm
your ruling fingers 

I used to greet the desert sun
mid-summer and beaming
vital as daybreak
swelled and golden by noon

I fed honeybees from my womb
hid hummingbirds in my branches 
nectar-filled and ruptured
a host for gray-stroked masses 

I need time to establish root
to anchor, set rhythm with current 
before I can withstand 
such absence 

But I've been pulled from the earth
crushed too soon
oil-mixed and wilted
gone before the bloom

Even when cut back to the stem,
I'm on tender knees with mercy
I sleep in the roots
hoard the storm’s salt

and wake only when the earth is ready 
to hold me again
to lay patient and mild
to let me burgeon, fruit