flowering plants

Grandmother pressed ancient seeds into my palm, her weathered fingers trembling. She'd learned their names from her mother, whispered stories of Thiruppavai devotionals sung while tending gardens. The Keeladi dig near our village had unearthed pottery fragments matching patterns she still embroidered. When neighbors gathered seeking her botanical wisdom, she refused payment, instead gifting seedlings. Some called it old-fashioned. Yet watching my daughter photograph jasmine blossoms for her startup, connecting farmers to markets, I understood. My grandmother was wealthy in something deeper. These flowers rooted us to soil, to song, to the hands that came before. That inheritance, no currency could measure.