BURST

Have you ever heard
the sprinkling of sweetgum seeds,
A ball of crows’ beaks
open and eager to be rattled by the wind,
To settle on the forest floor
amongst other ripe and weathered things

Have you ever touched
the delicate flesh of the strawberry bush,
So pink and bumpy, like a
folded starfish,
bursting at its seams
like a heart in love for the first time

What witness I am to this foolish courage,
This longing to sow and to grow,
This beautiful mess of potential and death,

A reminder that, somehow I made it,
That we are all the lucky winners of this world,
Somehow, somehow