It’s new, it’s not, the bones remember, though I forgot;
another year collapsing into itself like a wave
that folds and folds until the ocean swallows sound;

Was I kind enough? Did I hold the ones I love
without trying to fix their pain? Or did I burn too brightly,
leaving scorch marks where I only meant to warm?

The garden speaks in tongues, the ash and bloom; the plant, half
grown, uprooted by my own hand, learns the secret I’ve resisted,
that even displacement has its song; dust gathers where roots 
once settled, as a single green shoot pushes through; not in triumph,
but in quiet insistence, its pulse thrumming, begin again, begin again;

I stand among the ruins of last season’s self, unsure
which memories I should water, which to let dry and filter
back to earth; everything feels both tender and undone,
and I know this cycle, I’ve walked through fire enough times
to feel its language to my core, the crackle, the flare, the sudden
letting go; these are not destruction, but transformation;
a feather of smoke, a sigh of wind, the shape of renewal forming
in the haze; love lies somewhere between surrender
and spark, where risk opens the door to light;

In this threshold hour, I lift what remains of my wings, singed
and broken, not golden and shimmering as before, 
but strong enough to rise through the embered air, 
singing into grace what I can, while naming nothing as loss.

shoots - bj 2025