Sow generously, reap generously

On the last day of school before Thanksgiving break, my sensible, planner side urged me to focus on my to-do list while I still had a quiet house...but instead I spent that day doing a personal retreat at Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center outside of Cedar Rapids, IA (about a 30 minute drive).

It was a time-splurge I probably couldn't afford. I wondered if I would regret it--if just resting for a while at home or going for a long walk would have been enough restoration time and still allowed me to be "productive."

But out of the rich soil of that morning sprung the beginnings of a poem, my first since who knows how long, probably college. It was a gift I sorely needed after six months of frustration over never finding any time to work on my book, a sign of hope to push me onward.

Two weeks after my visit to Prairiewoods, I did finally sit down at the computer to finish the poem. It ended up going in a different direction than I first imagined, but I like it. Here it is.

The sun’s heat reaches in through the windowpanes

to bless my hands and face.

On the ground outside, curled-up lonely leaves

startled by the wind’s icy fingertips

fly up and flee to the safety of piles.

The trees are not frightened,

not dismayed.

Those thin and stripped-down branches of their crowns still reach

for the sky,

like hands raised in worship waving side to side,

adoring,

adoring,

and utterly free.

Anchored underneath, they can let everything else be

pushed and pulled where it will by the wind,

as would I

if I could make this oh so very structured bark,

cell upon square-walled cell in rows rigid and planned,

soften into gentleness and Yes

and Why Not

and a pause for the laughter

that my children invite me into, loud and wild,

cracking everything open.

Sometimes I do

remember that this root-strength is enough to hold me,

dare to stop pushing so hard for

—what anyway?—

and just let myself be blessed

by what has come to me today,

surrender and float with sky-stretching hands

on the breeze of the Spirit,

the breath of God.

I know, in those times,

how to dance like a tree in November

as the grim face of winter approaches,

how to stand my ground and brazenly hold out branches

covered in signs of hope,

the tiny and tight-fisted buds

that will survive it all

and at spring’s Someday open into green.

Oh teach me to live

with arms wide open, soaking up the sunlight

that is the secret of the trees’ endurance

and their joy.