When Worth Blooms in the Wild
How can I see myself as the mountain, whole,
When the winds of old voices erode every slope—
Always wanting more,
Always carving more?
I tell myself: The river knows its course,
But even the river doubts
When drought whispers louder than the flow.
Yes, I have self-love,
Stored like golden grain in barns of autumn.
But grain alone can’t mimic the rain’s kiss,
Nor warm a soul like sunlight shared.
Love is not scarce.
It dances like wildflowers after spring storms.
But the kind that stays,
Like a tree rooted through thunder and stillness,
Is rare.
A love that does not
Burn like wildfire,
Or pull like tides toward drowning,
Or strip bark from your limbs
Until you stand raw beneath cold stars—
But rather, the love of a quiet sky,
Patient as moss on stone,
Vast as forest silence
When no one is looking.
So how does a fern, curled and hidden,
Convince itself it's worthy of light,
When the sun it once needed
Never shone for long?
How do I believe I deserve
The garden I now find myself in—
Soft soil and gentle rains,
After years of frostbitten bloom?
Maybe,
The answer is this:
Even wild things,
Even thorned and weathered things,
Deserve to grow.
And when love comes,
Not as a storm,
But as the calming morning
In which dew drops dance along
To the gentlest of breezes,
Let me rise to meet it
With roots unashamed,
And petals open
Ready to embrace the sun's rays.