Without Expectation

Without Expectation

Do everything as if you were

planting a spruce seedling

among stumps in a clearcut,

laying it gently in the earth

where it may or may not grow,

knowing that even if it does

you will not be there to feel

your footsteps cushioned by

its bed of fallen needles—

you will not be there to linger

in glimmered sunlight slanting

on a blanket spread beneath

to catch every inch of shade.

Silence the voices that say,

What if this comes to nothing?

and just keep doing whatever

brings you most alive.


Urgency so easily overtakes our urge toward wonder, the craving to mash our hands into the earth and plant something that could outlast us all. We tell ourselves we have “better” things to do, and yet, we know on some level that what we plant now can make all the difference to someone else in the future—and perhaps even to our present selves as well. Recently, I came across a passage in the journals of Virginia Woolf’s husband, Leonard, in which he describes the months leading up to the terrible outbreak of war in Europe during the summer of 1939: “One of the most horrible things at that time was to listen on the wireless to the speeches of Hitler—the savage and insane ramblings of a vindictive underdog who suddenly saw himself to be all-powerful.” It is hard not to draw a parallel between that period in world history and our own perilous times, between Virginia and Leonard Woolf huddled around the radio awaiting news, and each of us scrolling through the latest horrors on our phones. Yet Leonard describes one afternoon when he had crouched beneath an apple tree in the orchard, planting iris. Virginia called to him from the window to come inside, Hitler was making another speech. But Leonard shouted back, “I shan’t come. I’m planting iris and they will be flowering long after he is dead.”

Encountering the deep truth and perspective embedded in those words, I feel called to examine all the ways I too rush to take in the so-called breaking news. Meanwhile, the blackberry bushes wait beside the backdoor in plastic pots to be planted. Meanwhile, notes from friends pile up on the counter, unanswered, and it dawns on me that I haven’t walked in the woods I love for weeks to see if the rare Canadian lily has finally unfurled its bell-shaped, orange blossoms, dangling on such delicate stems. Leonard Wood later revisited the same summer place in Rodmell where he and Virginia had stayed that summer. “Last March,” he wrote in his journals, “twenty-one years after Hitler committed suicide in the bunker, a few of those violet flowers still flowered under the apple-tree in the orchard.” Even when it feels as if we are kneeling in a hopeless field of clearcut stumps, we can choose to trust our own desire to nestle some seed of beauty in the ground, to offer some kindness to our hurting world.


Invitation for Writing & Reflection: What do you feel will endure beyond our own worries and sense of emergency in this moment? What might you plant or create right now, without expectation, that might offer shade, shelter, or beauty for others in the future?

Photo Credit: by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

I’ll be gathering a smaller group of souls on Friday, July 17th for a writing retreat that will focus on rest and release, bringing some much-needed breathing room to our lives through the practice of poetry. We’ll meet for 2.5 hours from 12-2:30pm Eastern Time. You can sign up here if you feel moved to join me!