The little plant is very sick

I should have known: I selected it because half its little plump leaves were already missing when I spotted it at IKEA, abandoned between a stack of DOFTA potpourris and a giant pyramid of FALSEHULT lantern. 

The little plant didn't have a Swedish name, or any name for that matter.  The sticker read 'POTTED PLANT $3.99'.  At least I knew I wasn't buying some alien form that was going to take over my brain during the night.

I brought the plant home and decided it would get better under my loving care.

It didn't.

It shed its first leaves in the car on the way home. It has kept shedding since.  Never mind the Evian water and the quarter teaspoon of fertilizer, the talking, the cooing, the fine example of my thriving African violets.  The little plant has no zest for life. 

It's quite depressing, even more so because I feel a sense of responsibility for its welfare.  God, or Fate, or the inscrutable forces of Swedish marketing somehow put the little plant on my path.  My heart leapt, my hand reached for my wallet and we drove home together.  Shouldn't that count for something?  Shouldn't I be coddling that snippet of life into a joyful overgrown bush?

Why isn't this working?

Perhaps I am thinking the wrong way.    Perhaps the little plant is terminally ill with a horrible chlorophyll cancer and I happen to have been chosen to sing it a French lullaby.  Every night until the last of its leaves falls onto the bedroom floor. 

Oh God! I might be the plant hospice!  I might be there for company and moral support.  Other forces might be at work that are pulling the little plant towards the other side of the great big divide, and I am just supposed to stand there, wave and keep eye contact until it's over and the little plant is kaput.  I'll have to bury its dried up little stem in the garden and throw its plastic pot in the garbage.

How I hate that!

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[rumi]

"Again, the violet bows to the lily, Again, the rose is tearing off her gown! The green ones have come from the other world, tipsy like the breeze up to some new foolishness. Again, near the top of the mountain the anemone's sweet features appear. The hyacinth speaks formally to the jasmine, 'Peace be with you,' 'And peace to you, lad! Come walk with me in this meadow.' Again, there are sufis everywhere! The bud is shy, but the wind removes her veil suddenly, 'My friend!'