Captured Valentine

Odd how empty a room is
Without a plant to talk to
To remember greenness
As a contingency of the right light
When I look up from a book
Unable to read another word
To watch how the minerals do it
Dissolving so quietly into leaves
Refusing to be just furniture or art
They startle me with the ways
They listen to the light
Even the thumb-like cactus I captured
And brought home to the desert of my room