Only when it rains do coyote willows
turn their brightest red, as they do
today in the drizzle and gray, and oh,
how I fall in love with them now,
these slender stems that know
how to regenerate from brokenness,
bringing their brilliant vermillion
to the dim of the day.
Let us live this way. When it is dark,
let us find what is brightest in us
and share it with the soggy world,
a thicket of grace in the midst of gloom,
not fancy, but rampant and so deeply willing
to share radiance, to dazzle, to blaze.