A book of poems sits next to my place at our breakfast table. Every morning I choose one poem at random to start my day, in expectation of some bit of wisdom, guidance or inspiration. Since there is no system to my choice, I wait for the surprise. So it was that these lines appeared one recent morning .
“Come with me into the woods where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts,…” *
The words felt completely out of season. My first instinct was to turn the page and find something that spoke of hope and comfort to get through a bleak, chilly day.
Instead, vowing to keep to the commitment I had made to stick with whatever appeared, I read the lines again a few times. Slowly, I began to understand their truth for this moment. Spring is advancing. No matter what. Despite seeing no sign of it. Even while the birds don’t sing a dawn chorus. Even though the fields and forests are bare and brown. Even as the days get shorter and the nights grow colder. Because spring, as the poet reminds me, is a “forever gift.”
How easy it is to forget something so important: a turn in the year that we can count on coming, maybe sooner, maybe later, but one that will come, regardless of feeling that the world is hanging on by a slim thread; hanging on to civility, hanging on to a promise for pandemic relief, “Biden’ our time” until January 20.
Not long ago, walking on a cold and blustery day with my cousin Dot, we noticed a hornet’s nest at the top of a tall tree. It had been raining and blowing a lot on previous days and all the leaves were long gone. Still, that perfect gray globe kept its precarious hold on a pencil-thin branch. I recall Dot remarking on the tenacity of such a fragile, miraculous creation. We saw it as metaphor and message for the determination we would need to get through the days ahead.
Are you feeling like that? Hanging on for dear life to hope, to expectation for better days ahead. For your children and grandchildren trying to navigate the unpredictable waters of schooling and social life, for your health, for your job. For our country in desperate need of healing. For everyone trying to get through just one day by the skin of their teeth. Hanging on day by unpredictable day.
Long ago, our early ancestors lived in fear during long winter nights like these, watching the days grow shorter as the sun disappeared from the sky. Would it return? Or would the world be plunged into perpetual night? Each year at this time, they waited and hoped. They lighted bonfires to encourage the sun back. And it seemed to them that it had worked. Today, despite the fact we have long known about the turning of the earth and can pretty much count on the lengthening days, we still light fires and candles. We string holiday lights to dispel the darkness.
As you light your candles this year, light a candle for hope. Light one for justice and one for peace. Then add one for yourself, that you will find enough strength and resilience to hang on for a while longer. Let it be a candle that burns with a full measure of trust that better times will come and yes, eventually, so will spring.
*from “Bazougey” by Mary Oliver