Choosing the Light

Choosing the Light

We think of wildflowers as fragile,
amazed at the way they shoot through
layers of soil and plowed-up gravel
on the raw cusp of spring each year,
sensing some new heat and invitation
in the sun, often long before we do.
But as I kneel beside the first tiny
yellow coltsfoot to appear in the yard,
in ground I’d think too rocky and cold
for any living thing, I see they are
not delicate. I notice the segmented
stems that must have guarded each bud
as they pushed upward like spears
to pierce the warmer air. Relentless
as the urge that also blooms in us
sometimes—to find the one thing
that brings us alive, and open ourselves
fully to it, never giving up and saying
to the world: Do to me what you must.
Knowing it will have been worth it
to spend even just one day, a single hour,
exposed to the light we chose.

I don’t know why it always feels like such a gift to see the first signs of spring— wildflowers like coltsfoot and snowdrops shooting up, the suddenly warmer sun that has clearly grown in power since early winter. But spring often arrives for me like an awakening from a long sleep, like a true new year. In this poem, I became fascinated with the way we think of wildflowers, also called “ephemerals” for how quickly they fade, as somehow fragile or delicate. In reality, it takes great resilience and strength to keep coming back year after year, to push through the human-made layers of gravel spread on the roads during winter. This same call to rise toward the light also visits us at times, “to find the one thing that brings us alive” in a given moment, even if that shifts and changes over time. We can grow overly obsessed with finding our one calling in the world, when a better question we might ask ourselves is this: What calls to me right now, in this moment? What do I enjoy doing that I would keep doing no matter what? It can be uncomfortable to answer the call, to reveal ourselves vulnerably after a difficult season, but I know that, for me, it has always been worth it to live even briefly in the warmth and authenticity of the light I chose, following my own deepest desires to share my gifts with the world.

This has certainly been true of my journey as a poet. I have had to learn over the years how to keep moving through each new blockage, how to continue revealing myself wholeheartedly in my writing, especially when the seductive desire to hide returned again and again. When I was young, I would tape poems I loved to my bedroom walls, never dreaming that I would publish my own books someday, or that I would gather poems I loved into anthologies that other people would read and appreciate. I was only responding to what called to me, and eventually started filling notebooks with poems of my own. Only in the past few years I have adopted a “mind of abundance” when it comes to my creativity. I felt afraid for so long of opening and blooming in a world that would no doubt judge and criticize me. I didn’t think I would be able to handle the exposure, and often worried I was too weak to weather the harshness of others when it came to my art. What I have found, however, is that the more I share, offering my work as freely as I can to the world, the more I am called back to the page, back to the vulnerability of opening myself to whatever wants to move through me.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Describe a time when you showed up vulnerably in the world, or shared your creativity with someone else. Did you feel it was worth it to reveal your truest self? What other examples of such open-hearted presence can you find around you, perhaps in the natural world?

This poem is an excerpt from my latest book of poetry, Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Courage & Self-Compassion (Insight/Simon & Schuster).