There is a mountain valley

It is not a valley of emptiness.
It is a valley full of life and discovery.
Trees grow with trees
that shouldn't grow together,
but they do.
Flowers grow with flowers
that shouldn't grow together,
but they do.

Some days
they help me to draw out
the most elaborate ideas:
romances,
a future family,
children,
how I'll treat my grandchildren,
how my grandchildren will treat me.

Other days
they fill my time
with entertaining, and light hearted thoughts: how we can put on
dance parties in the bottom floor
of my apartment,
a pie eating club
complete with t-shirts
and professional merchandise.

On a few special days,
they bring me down
to see myself for who I am.
They give me a look
into the crystal pool
where I acknowledge
all of my imperfections
but also all my strengths;
the whole of myself.

They let me feel
the intense complexity
of one singular emotion
as if it were
just one hue of color
on a painter's palette.

The valley is not without beauty
but it is without beholders.

The beauty is misunderstood;
labeled as foolish and unrealistic.
The few who do find it
are focused
on getting to the end of their trail
or using the valley as a means
to their end.

They do not realize that the valley is the end.

I want to cry out
at those travelers,
the precious few who find that valley,
to stop
and look
at the beauty that lies there.
The uniqueness.

It's special.

But I don't yell
or insist
or show them a brochure
that outlines in
the plainest,
most direct words I know
all the wonderfulness
that hides between the flowers.
There is no gift shop
and there is no snapchat filter for this location.

I let them pass.

And I hope.

I hope that someday
someone will understand the valley
full of untraditional plants.

Because they too have an untraditional garden.

And they will accept it how it is.