The Botanist of Forgotten Feelings

I am a botanist of feelings,

Tending a most peculiar garden.

I do not grow the common blooms,

Of rage or joy, so free and pardon.

I specialize in the forgotten,

The subtle, and the nearly-dead.

The species most have overlooked,

The whispers that are never said.

I have a plot for Almost-Love,

A vine that climbs but finds no wall.

Its flowers are a blushing grey,

And have no fragrance, none at all.

And here, a patch of Might-Have-Beens,

Their leaves are silver, thin as breath.

They grow in shaded, quiet spots,

A quiet, pale, and lingering death.

I water Innocence-Lost with tears,

It has one bloom, a porcelain bell.

It rings a sound that you can't hear,

A lonely, single, farewell knell.

But my most prized, my rarest find,

Is Quiet-Hope, a stubborn seed.

It grows in cracks of broken dreams,

A truly wild and tenacious weed.

It has no bright or gaudy flower,

Its roots are deep, its will is vast.

It's found when all the light is gone,

And is the only thing that lasts.

So if you find a feeling strange,

One you don't have a name to for,

Just send it to my garden gates,

I'll know exactly what it's for.

I'll press it gently in a book,

And give it soil, and give it space.

For every feeling has its right,

To simply be, in its own place.