Awakenings

(I wrote the first part of this poem during the winter – and have added to it now that spring is shyly tip-toeing in…  The story behind the first part of the poem is that I was sitting in my living room on a quiet day.  My soul was restless and I needed to pause and stop in the madness of my scheduled life.  So I was sitting there, looking out the window – thinking – processing…when I noticed one lone leaf, very tiny, still clinging to the naked branches of a tree.  This is what inspired the poem…)

Like a blank, waiting page – silent comfort.

Naked trees.  Grey sky.

One leaf: black, dead…yet she clings…alone.

Shriveled reluctance…inner strength; stubbornness.

Perhaps not knowing that the inevitable will come – that the inevitable is here.

Yet alone she clings

Through rain, sleet, freeze and wind.

She shutters and dances, yet grasps to life

Alone.

There’s a sort of comfort to empty quietness

Masks are broken.

Eyes gaze at nothing really – just relaxed, and waiting and BEING.

Waiting to be filled…but adoring the empty – as if it is a sanctuary in and of itself.

Solace of quiet loneliness.

Letting be what will be.  

Letting the winds rage, and the rain pound, and the winter darken the sky.

And still she clings…

Her defiance to the inevitable wind is astounding.

Her outer beauty gone, the inner strength screams

Of something extra ordinary within.

A part of me admires her

And a part of me pities her

Why not just give up the fight?

Release your hold – winter is coming – winter is here

But still she clings…

I look down for a moment, my own world spinning around me.

The wind of my schedules and expectations rip at my soul.

The darkened sky of deadlines to meet and roles to fill creep into my quiet.

Yet I pause, as if suspended in time.  The lonely afternoon sanctuary of my place by the window

Calms me and soothes my human fragile soul.

And as I raise my gaze out the window once more

She is gone.

A part of me looks harder, sad I missed her final moments

Of tenaciousness against the elements…

But she is gone

Finally letting go and allowing the wind to carry her away.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Two worlds collide

Hope peaks out of the shadows

Joy tiptoes out of her place of hiding

Like a child wanting to throw a surprise party

She puts her finger to her lips and whispers “Ready?!”

There’s a twinkle in the wind tonight

As the day just can’t go to bed quite yet…too much to miss out on!

Can you taste it? 

Renewal, as a promise of something beyond the darkness

Has begun to subtly paint her hues of green into our world.

Listen! Can you hear it?   The rumor running on the breeze tonight?

That the dead did not win.  That the grey could not hold out.

That the wind has stopped his scolding, and the rain ran out of tears.

That love, peace and laughter could not lay dormant any longer.

And the nakedness of shame has been covered with the grace of life.

Can you feel it?

The tenacious grip of hope has won.

And we are seeing this miracle with our own eyes!

Spring is resurrected.