A Slender Balance

Having stayed inside the study for so many quiet hours, I slipped out into the neighborhood park and found my way inside the humid glass of the community greenhouse. On a high potting bench, a dried spiral tendril from a passionflower vine had caught between the teeth of a small metal planting rake. I stepped carefully along the slatted wood, pausing to observe how the brittle tendril trembled whenever warm air drifted through the vents. With slow deliberation, I cradled the delicate coil between two fingers, easing it gently away from the tines until it rested free upon a bed of damp peat moss.