for Stumpy, and maybe for you
To survive. To not only survive,
but to bring joy. To bloom despite
our own hollowing.
To bloom despite the erosion
of the world in which we grew.
I speak of a cherry tree, but
I also, perhaps, speak of you—
how you have made of your life
not just a stump, but a story.
How in hostile conditions,
despite brackish odds,
you’ve found the drive to grow.
How your words and your actions,
like cuttings, might take on a life
of their own—a legacy
of resilience that finds a home
in the soil of the lives still here.
In this way, you continue
to flourish and be known.
In this way you are not here
and ever here. Gone
and never gone. In this way
one life is a blossom that disappears
and returns on a branch not its own.
None of us live forever.
Still the chance to give the best of ourselves
away. This is how we go on.
for more information about Stumpy, the beloved cherry tree, visit here
Posts Tagged ‘growth’
When It Looks Like the End
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cherry tree, growth, inspiration, mortality, stumpy, tree on April 1, 2024| 11 Comments »
In a Time of Little Hope
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, grief, growth, hope on December 23, 2023| 18 Comments »
In one day, the paperwhites
surge into life—
this heart, too,
has been forced to grow quickly.
Is it any wonder I thrill
to see this leaping up
toward light?
Any wonder I’ve begun to believe
in impossible things?
Mycelial
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, grief, growth, mushroom on August 19, 2022| 4 Comments »
Now I understand how grief
is like a mushroom—
how it thrives in dark conditions.
How it springs directly
from what is dead.
Such a curious blossoming thing,
how it rises and unfurls
in spontaneous bourgeoning,
a kingdom all its own.
Like a mushroom,
most of grief is never seen.
It grows and expands beneath everything.
Sometimes it stays dormant for years.
Grief, like a mushroom,
can be almost unbearably beautiful,
even exotic, delicate, veiled,
can arrive in any shape and hue.
It pulls me closer in.
Like a mushroom, grief
asks me to travel to regions
of shadow and dim.
I’m astonished by what I find—
mystery, abundance, insight.
Like a mushroom, grief
can be wildly generative.
Not all growth takes place
in the light.
This poem was published in ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry on 9/11/22
Unfolding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, growth, infinity, support, unfolding, universe on August 18, 2022| 7 Comments »
In a vision, I saw the self
as white flower—
a many-petalled ranunculus—
a flower that opened and opened
and infinitely opened, reaching
beyond borders, beyond atmosphere,
beyond our beautiful spiral of galaxy,
its petals unfolding and unfolding,
a timeless, unending unfolding.
It comforts me to know
there’s no edge to the universe,
no way to fall off, no way
to accidentally go beyond.
There was a moment when
the green stem snapped and I worried
the blossom had become too big.
Then I felt it, how completely
the great bloom was held by the world,
and in that moment, I trusted that holding.
The flower kept growing.
Now, back in my body,
I’m still opening into that trust.
After Their Trip to Guatemala I Watch My Daughter and Her Friends
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, girls, giving, growth, travel on July 2, 2022| 6 Comments »
The smallest change in perspective can transform a life. —Oprah Winfrey They return arm in arm, linked by elbows and laughter, linked by memories of women weaving and warm fresh tortillas and the girl who begged them to bring her home with them. They are the same girls who left, only more spacious, filled with vast lake and tropical rain and the generosity of the people who live with little. They are more citizens of the world, now, having sat on the earth and around tables with children and elders so different, so the same. Having left in service, they return the richer— oh sweet paradox, how in giving of themselves they are beautifully changed. |
Giant Bouquet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blossom, desmond tutu, flower, growth on June 1, 2022| 6 Comments »
You blossom because of other people.
—Desmond Tutu
Because of you,
I know heady,
honeyed perfume,
I know countless
petals, the flutter,
the thrill in opening—
because of you,
this long-stemmed
laughter, this
unashamed blush.
Because you
are sunflower,
cosmos, hyacinth,
I am iris, lavender,
larkspur.
I am only me
because of you,
and the gift of you
is so beautiful,
even in this time
of sorrow, I am
lily splayed wide,
white peony, red poppy,
I am blooming wild
with the beauty
given to you.
The Opening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, growth, loss, opening, surrender on March 23, 2022| 5 Comments »
If the day is a hinge,
then loss is the hand
that swings the door
so that what I would never choose
becomes my opening.
What I would never choose
becomes the thing
that makes me need to be
a better person.
What I could not choose
becomes the spring board
to devotion.
So let me open.
In this time of broken hope,
love says to me,
Be the yes.
And if you cannot be the yes,
then stop trying anything
and let yourself fall
into to the opening.
On Discovering I’ve Grown
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beaver, growth, personal growth, tree on December 15, 2020| 2 Comments »
It’s not forever.
When we fence a tree
down by the river,
some slender tree
that a beaver could easily
gnaw through, the fence
only stays up until the trunk
grows big and thick,
wide enough to discourage
any who would try take it down.
Just today, I realized I’d built a fence
around me. Noticed it
only because, while routinely
clearing out,
I dismantled the fence
and took it away.
How invisible a wall can be.
What amazed me:
how enormous I’ve become—
vigorous, robust,
sturdy enough not to worry
about little bites.
I remember how, not so long ago,
I was so vulnerable.
You could hug me now,
now that the fence is gone,
though your arms wouldn’t quite reach
all the way around.
Perhaps that’s as it should be.
Part of me belongs to you.
Part of me is still growing
into the world.
More Love, More Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged equality, growth, love, sorrow, sunflower on May 31, 2020| 3 Comments »
Sorrow is how we learn to love.
—Rita Mae Brown, Riding Shotgun
If sorrow is how we learn to love,
then let us learn.
Already enough sorrow’s been sown
for whole continents to erupt
into astonishing tenderness.
Let us learn. Let compassion grow rampant,
like sunflowers along the highway.
Let each act of kindness replant itself
into acres and acres of widespread devotion.
Let us choose love as if our lives depend on it.
The sorrow is great. Let us learn to love greater—
riotous love, expansive love,
love so rooted, so common
we almost forget
the world could look any other way.
Flourish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, essence, growth, larkspur, rebirth, wildflower on May 27, 2020| 2 Comments »
Flourish
Whatever it is inside the larkspur
that says grow, grow, grow,
I want to know it, too. Want
to obey the voice that urges me on,
even in frost, even in rain.
I want to rise out of my own dried debris,
want to know how it is to die and return,
new and yet somehow the same.
And what is it that fuels the drive?
I want to know that— the divine
encouragement that knows
when to wait, when to push,
when to wilt, when to flourish,
when to swell into oh! bright bloom.
I want to know myself as wick,
to be lit, to be the fire itself.