The lilies were excitable, giddy somewhere in a shop and hands prepared them, their stamen snipped away, no pollen stains today, they whispered, somehow as if they knew.

And later they lay looking up at the kitchen ceiling, primed and buzzing like the day, tingling heady at their edges and they waited, perfumed and still.

Until they jiggled as the car pulled away, soft petals in a silver cloud, in the safety of the boot and up the hill and far away.

And they were ready, they were pinched in, secured with satin bows, biding their time to shine.

Then daylight flooded into them, as if to say fill yourself up and drink it all in. And they were lifted out with care, in all their colours, their rose malmaison, in their vermillon swirls. Taffeta embraced them with its cool champagne folds brushing against their leaves.

In the hush and murmurs, in the dust particles dancing, they were secure. With strong stems and frills of fragile verve, they made their way. Photons caught them, turned their brightness up to full saturation and everyone watched, as though they saw their own lives in the petals, their own beauty, their own sense of time.

And moments passed, planets turned and stars imploded.

Then back out into delerious sunlight, and the lilies were lifted high, thrust into the sky with shrieking, as if to say, this – this moment now and look at my glorious colours and always breathe me in.

These seconds of the magnificence, right here, right now. Forever gazing at the stars, outside of time.