carried high above the sea of sky
(to keep from drowning, of course)
brittle fragile biting hiding
beauty
in a storm of hollow
promise
.
.
.
and it’s always accidental, the discovery of light and hope and love in the midst of deep shadow. we want to be cooler than that, less trite, or at the very least, sharp-edged and angled, dressed in hard shells that cover our scars. we think that’s how to stay safe, how to survive, how to win. we think there’s an answer, when all the food is in the questions, hanging low and heavy with overripe nectar. if we’re lucky, one of them will drop just as we walk by, leaving splatters of wisdom on our long black cave of coat, and for a moment we’ll remember what it’s like to be alive (or at least we’ll forget what it’s like to be less than). the bloom is the destination and the growing is the map. have you ever seen what a tangle of thorn the rose tumbles from?
eventually it all falls down, rotten with seed and ancient mirror.
you must look
for the glimmer
of valor
.
.
.
Maizey knew secrets about everybody. She wasn’t the town gossip, quite, because she only ever listened—no one’s deepest fears ever passed her lips. Instead, she was a sponge, and felt herself grow heavy with whispers and confessions, felt herself expanding with fertile wish and hopeless error. Some days her head tilted to one side with the weight of it all.
But that never stopped her, never kept her from patting a shoulder and asking all the right questions. This was her purpose, her role in life, and she’d never once questioned the wisdom or the burden of her gift. At night, she planted these secrets like seeds, and then she waited. And every morning there were flowers. Morning glory and nasturtium, rose and daisy, snapdragon and alyssum.
In her mind she knew their real names, Fred and Ruth, Shannon and Cindy, Brittany and Brian, but she liked to think of them as blooms, growing up through life’s soil.
She liked to water them with tears and open them with sunshine. She was happy to keep their truths hidden underground.
She was happy to be the gardener.
.
.
.
Blooming is a matter of survival. You have to do it, no matter what. It doesn’t have to be big or bold or pretty or showy, it just has to be done.
Even if you’ve been trampled or blown over, even if you’re lying in the mud, even if you’re dying of thirst, even if no one will see.
You don’t do it for the sun or the praise or the perfume.
You don’t do it for the sky or the attention.
You don’t do it for the hummingbird.
You do it for the release.
Open.
Even when it hurts.
Let the world wrestle you to the ground.
Stand up and offer the beauty of resistance.
Find the light seeping in through all the cracks.
Silence is not the same as consent or cowardice or indifference. Silence is a sign of strength. Silence means you are listening.
Breathe in. Grow again, taller. Find a way. Take the path you need, or the one you can find. Keep going. Blooming is a matter of survival.
.
.
.
purple is the shape
of letting go
and blue is the beginning
of sacrifice
all the scars and torn edges
faded blooms and broken stems
form the canvas of whole
and the soft brush of plenty
as gold fills every sky
with perseverance
.
.
.
A sun-filled birdsong morning, windows open and purple flowers, light filtering into every shadow. June is such a busy-bee month, I have to remind myself to stop and smell the roses, literally. My first cup of tea in the garden at dawn is my meditation, my morning pages, my daily gratitude. I drink it down and always, wish for another.
I find myself in getting-stuff-done mode, as if finally my body and my mind have both come to life after winter’s lack of ambition. I am like a plant, a tree, a flower. I need the sun on my skin and the birds to sing me awake in order to grow.
I reach for the sky and it’s there, right there, at the tips of my fingers, day and night.
And it’s enough.
.
.
.
days when i do nothing
but listen
moving my body in the rhythm
of nurture
i care for you and
together we grow
remembering the mirror
i’ve forgotten
wisdom matters less
than sun on skin
i break a bloom off
with one brown shoulder
a mistake to remind me
of gentle
and whisper my apology
to wind
.
.
.
i stood in the sun for three days once
singular and proud of my peacock pretty ordinance
and refused to marry the sky
growth was always my pattern
and bending
my habit
coy and shy
cut and displayed
thirsty and forgotten
i was always
about color
and you
stole my green
stripped my purple
and stomped my chartreuse back
into black and white
grey-lipped
soil
until i became
an abstract painting of perhaps
washed proud and stood clean
in the summer
of the river
of change
.
.
.
.
.
.
My back door opens onto a little sort-of-sunken alcove (which is a bad thing when it rains a lot) and in spring it’s my favorite place to sit with my first cup of tea and watch the golden light wake up the flowers. This is my view this morning, daffodils and euphorbia and sunshine bright enough to be blinding. The birds are singing out in a concert of joy, and it’s hard to believe that just over a month ago, this very spot I’m looking at was buried beneath a five-foot mound of snow.
These are the days when it’s hardest to stay inside and work, my garden teasing me with new green, fresh promise, and the relief of sun on my skin. But there is work to be done, and that is life. Naughty kitten keeps coming to my window, asking me to come out and play, and I laugh and tell him no, even as I wish I could be him.
Already, I feel behind in my garden. Mother Nature always runs faster than I can and there is never a day when I don’t see ten things that need to be done. But no matter. The windows are open, the robins are busy, and the daffodils nod hello each time I walk by.
Good morning, I say. To all of it. The distractions and the worries and the work and all the broken bits of life that need fixing.
Good morning, here we are again.
It’s a beautiful thing.
