Spirit Check

Moving along toward grace-filled beauty with a thumb that only hints of green.

Practicing limited knowledge.

Hoping for inspired results.

Digging.

Rearranging.

Counting on the remains
of last year’s seeds.

Hoping to reveal again those
sweet blooms of joy,
the soul-speaking primrose,
the proof of memories revived.

Day after day.

Evening after evening.

Waiting for blooms to pop open
in a fresh boasting of
creative ingenuity.

But all is still.

No blooms appearing
in that haphazardly tended space.
Those tall green stems
standing so proud
against the backdrop of other
more serious attempts
that truly sing.

A slim effort, really.

A half-hearted go at restoring
what might have been.

Then the wise gardener arrives,
gently grasping a stem,
delivering words
that puncture yet ignite the soul.

“Cultivating weeds.”

The sudden realization
of misplaced trust,
of wasted efforts on unshining stars.

No wonder hope was in vain.

The reaping of the sowing occurred
but the sowing was dead from the start.

Born out of human effort
and an earthly so-called wisdom
that proved once again to make roots
that destroy
and spread
and steal life from that which is true.

The struggle to hope again
while wallowing in the sorrow of defeat,
while life-depriving shame
strives to drive its roots
into that same carelessly tended soil.

But softly, the voice that is true
calls out in the wild untamed,
at once restoring
and centering the soul,
free of reproach
but challenging all the same,
as the spirit

is called

to soar.

“Start again, child, start again.”