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Posts Tagged ‘growth’

Mycelial




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

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Unfolding

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.

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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.
 
 

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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.

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The Opening




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.

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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.

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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.

 

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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.

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My daughter plants nasturtium seeds, 

two per hole, four inches apart. 

 

Meanwhile, two rows away, I drop carrot seeds 

four to the inch, into the soft dark soil.  

 

Oh, the secrets of dirt, this kingdom 

of earth with its cool and damp quiet— 

 

how quickly its finite borders pull me 

into the infinite. What joy to travel here 

 

with my girl, though she is hesitant traveler.  

One could say the main thing we did today  

 

was measuring—how deep, how many seeds, 

how far apart. Perhaps. When we finish, it will look 

 

the same as when we began. But 

I look at my daughter across the rows, 

 

humming with her hands in the dirt 

and I see already in her the fiery petals,  

 

the peltate leaves like green flags  

that know how to play with the wind.  

 

 

 

 

 

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Last summer’s grass still stands in the field,

dry and fringe-like. It shushes against my thighs

as I walk. How is it still upright? After the weight

of last year’s snow? How has it not fallen, decayed?

 

Though I can break the brittle stems in my fingers,

it bends in the wind, more resilient than I could imagine.

 

What inside me is dead, yet still standing?

What old thoughts, their seeds long gone,

are filling the fields of imagination?

 

The new grass already is emerging into spring.

Soft. Deep green. Unable to be bent or broken,

its scent sweet and sharp in the nose.

 

Let me find in me this freshness, this new growth,

this willingness to push up through what’s dead.

Let me roll in it like a dog, till I come up stained green—

green thoughts. Green words. Green wonder.

Green learning what it is to be green.

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