When Petals Whisper of Passing

Ritu Kamra Kumar

Ritu Kamra Kumar

Last night, the flowers in my courtyard swayed their delicate heads in the whispering wind — proud, perfumed, pulsating with life. Their whiteness shimmered faintly under the shy moonlight, as though each petal were a tiny prayer murmured into the night. I lingered near them longer than usual, feeling a strange companionship with their stillness — a reminder that beauty, even when silent, speaks.

This morning, when I stepped out with my cup of tea, they lay scattered like fallen thoughts — pale, bruised, and ready to be swept away. A breeze stirred, and a few of the petals fluttered helplessly toward the gate, as though seeking one last glimpse of the garden that had once embraced them.

It was then that a stillness settled over me, deep and deliberate — a quiet questioning of the fragile fabric we call life. How brief, I mused, is the journey from bloom to dust! From fragrant existence to forgettable debris.

The scene transported me to my mother’s garden in Ambala, where I had spent countless childhood mornings. I remember trying, with anxious hands, to “save” fallen marigolds, tucking them carefully into an empty box. “They’ll be fine tomorrow,” I had told her with childlike certainty. She had smiled, that warm, gentle smile that now lives only in memory. “Beta,” she said softly, “everything that blooms must bow.”

Back then, I thought she meant only the flowers. Now, years after she has gone, I understand she was speaking of life itself. It reminded me too of her small brass trophies lined on dusty shelves — medals for school plays, running races, and timid debates. She would dust them lovingly every Sunday, whispering, “These are reminders that you once shone.” Their worn gleam, like the petals, spoke of impermanence — yet of enduring joy. The trophies, like the blossoms, were monuments of momentary marvels, fragile evidence of time’s fleeting favour.

As I looked at the wilted blossoms, I recalled Wordsworth’s daffodils — forever “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” ¹. Yet, unlike Wordsworth’s immortalized flowers, mine had no poem to preserve them. They had lived their verse and met their quiet epilogue in the dust.

Perhaps that’s the bittersweet truth — life moves on, with or without witness. We often chase permanence — in relationships, possessions, ambitions — forgetting that transience is the truest teacher. Like Shelley’s “Ozymandias” ², even the mightiest monuments crumble; like Kalidasa’s Meghaduta³, messages of longing are carried away by clouds that never stay still. Even the most radiant of things, like the golden fleece of Jason and the Argonauts⁵, must eventually fade. Everything is a fleeting fragrance, fading even as it’s inhaled.

I remembered once meeting an old man in Lodhi Gardens who fed breadcrumbs to the pigeons every morning. “They forget me by afternoon,” he chuckled when I asked if the birds recognized him. “But that’s the beauty, beta — no one remembers too long, not even pain.” His words lingered with me, echoing the same truth these flowers silently speak — that every bloom, however bright, must dissolve.

I bent down to pick a single petal. Despite its fall, it still felt velvety, stubbornly clinging to its faint scent. Isn’t that what we humans do too? Cling to fragments of yesterday — a smile, a letter, a song — even when life has long moved ahead?

The morning sun climbed higher, and the petals that had once glowed with moonlit charm now looked like paper ghosts. The gardener came with his broom, sweeping them into a corner. Part of me wanted to stop him — to cry, “Wait! They were beautiful once!” But I didn’t. I simply watched. Because somewhere between the night’s bloom and morning’s decay lies the entire metaphor of existence.

Life, like those flowers, demands to be lived in the now — in the dance, not the decay. And yet, how often we delay joy, defer gratitude, deny ourselves the simple grace of noticing what is while yearning for what could be.

I thought of my mother again, dusting the trophies with careful hands, whispering lessons in silence: that recognition is fleeting, effort endures, and beauty bows only to time. In those moments, the line between blossom and human blurred — the petals fell, the trophies dulled, yet their stories remained, stitched into memory.

When the broom swept the last petal away, the earth seemed bare, yet strangely serene — whispering softly, like Tagore’s truth: *“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” ⁴

I lingered for a moment, touched the empty stem, and smiled. Perhaps tomorrow new buds will bloom — different, yet the same. Perhaps life is nothing but an endless rehearsal of renewal, a rhythm where endings and beginnings clasp hands unseen.

As I turned to go inside, the breeze brushed past me, carrying the faintest trace of that vanished fragrance. And in that soft, invisible breath, I heard the quietest of whispers —

“Bloom while you can, and bow with grace.”

Footnotes:

1. Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” — celebrating nature’s ephemeral beauty and joy.

2. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias” — reflecting the impermanence of power and worldly grandeur.

3. Kalidasa, Meghaduta — a classical Sanskrit poem in which messages of longing are sent via clouds, symbolizing transience.

4. Rabindranath Tagore — emphasizing the gentle continuity between life and death.

5. Greek Mythology — Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece represents ambition and desire for the unattainable, echoing the fleeting nature of achievements.

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Setu, October 2025