Today it is the chives that spur me,
seeing their slender green scapes and leaves
that have pushed up
through the dried clumps
of last year’s version of themselves.
When nothing else in the garden is green,
the chives grow, smooth, bendable, soft,
and yet they have managed to pierce
through the hard spring dirt.
Unwatered. Ignored.
In the aftermath of cold and dark,
they come. And something green in me responds,
pungent and powerful, eager. Ready
to flourish. Ready to meet the world,
though the cold is far from over.
What is it in us that longs to grow
through the previous, dried up versions of ourselves?
It rises, yes, like tiny spears, unstoppable,
bent on thriving, daring us to be
that resilient, that willing, that green.