written By
I don’t believe in losing hope.
I believe in finding it
perhaps by making pesto
or deadheading irises
when I can be surrounded
by what’s still alive:
my garden, defying a childhood
framed in the gutter’s litter
tossed newspapers soaked in rain,
smudged in dog shit. The dead-end
street around the corner
offered paradise—an empty lot
with flowering weeds.
Was that a loss
of hope? Or a grasping
for what I longed for
when I thought the world
could stretch its lazy arms
and deliver, all in good time.
With age, time thins, seedlings
harden, shrivel–leaving
only wisdom, a path emerging
through tangled roots
leading to the adage: what is,
is. All that changes
is how to breathe, choose
the dark center of the iris,
the nectar, the bees.
