Transplanted

The lotus stands silently, its roots immersed in the wet black mud of the pond. Its head always reaching for the light. Connected to the earth, it understands the hard cold reality of hanging on, of not being swept away by the currents, or pulled under into the dead fall that washes into the coves after storms.

It also understands the continual need to find the light, to open itself to the bright side of living and feed off that light until it is once more time to rest. Then, pulling back into itself it lies in silent repose, allowing whatever is, to settle and meld back into the great oneness that is inevitable. Back and forth it moves, from darkness to light and back to darkness, trying to maintain the balance that all living things need in order to flourish.

The cactus stand silently in their prickly overcoats and gaze blindly at the light around them. They raise their arms in supplication to a power that leaves them devoid of choices. To acknowledge the tiny bird gasping its last breath in the noon day heat would be unconscionable, because there is nothing in their repertoire that has prepared for them to deal with it. The darkness is cold here, the light torrid, movement almost unheard of. They simply exist by sucking up every last bit of moisture that comes their way and storing it deep inside themselves where nothing else can get it without virtually destroying them.

Transplanted to the pond, the cactus would drown.

Transplanted to the desert, the lotus would most likely wither away in the small resources available for it.

I'm not sure it is always possible to do that old bloom where you are planted thing