Although I wrote this poem a little over two years ago, I can’t help but feel its relevance also in this moment. There are very few things I feel confident enough to say I “know” about life, however, the seasonal aspect of our very existence is one of them.
I know that light sits on the outside of brokenness.
I know that relief is the subsequent wave of ache.
I know that sadness is the backlight for joy.
And I know that death comes before the rising.
There are so many things that have died this year - comfort, relationships, ideologies, dreams, thoughts of what could have been, what should have been, what wasn’t. But it is exactly the seasonal aspect of life that is so intricately woven into the depths of our bones that allows us to sit with those things and mourn their loss. We can cry and we can ache and we can scream and we can... survive.
Because on the other side of the cracks in our souls there is warmth from the exposure to sun. There is the song of birds singing of a new day. There is hope for a thing that wasn’t, but now is. There is only life, and more life.
The whole thing is about the rise. And it always comes, always - right on time, and right where it’s supposed to be. First the dying, then the rising. Winter blankets the earth with spring inevitably on its heels.
[2018]
I did not appreciate the luxury of warmth until I encountered the chilling sting of winter’s visitation.
The spring had laid its blossoms of colorful life like a sweater upon my back,
Sheltering me from the imminent entrance of its harsh and bitter cousin.
And now with its arrival I am lost in a frosted world that has covered the growth I once knew as normal.
With numbing droplets seeping into my soil, the last leaf has fallen and I am still.
I am still in the face of loss.
I am still in the face of change.
Overwhelmed by the jolting bite of cold,
I am confused by the juxtaposition found in the replenishing water melting into my bones.
Maybe the white fury of snow brings within it the rapid fury for growth.
Maybe the buds of spring are dependent on its sharp prick to weave the tapestry of its beautiful season.
And if within its grasp it carries the destructive precursor for life,
Then maybe, just maybe, I will not only survive these wintery depths.
Perhaps within its offering of darkened hibernation I will quietly be unfolded into a state of blooming.
Perhaps within the envelopment of its bleak and foreign arrival I will be rooted into deepened security.
And so I will continue to be still in the face of loss.
And I will continue to be still in the face of change.
Winter has come, but I am not finished.