New Mexico (Mid Res)

On the driest day,

beneath a sun that sears

what it should have warmed,

they root in silence—

not in soil,

but in the fractured mouths

of stone.

Succulents,

small and fierce,

learn early

to drink from dust,

to hoard sweetness

in thick, secret skin,

to bloom

where no one thought

they would.

They do not cry for rain.

They do not flinch from heat.

They endure—

by folding themselves inward,

by growing sharp to survive,

by carrying life

in impossible places.

They wait patiently,

not to be rescued,

but simply to be seen.