streams in the desert & spring in the wilderness

streams in the desert

I killed the hyacinth within two weeks of buying it and I am crying almost daily, crying 
out of overwhelm at the rot in the brain and blood vessels of ones I love, crying 
out of overwhelm at the everlasting arms that are carving out streams 
in this desert, the pain of my fingers being pried open and the shock of finding 
that the little sprout I’d smothered in my sweaty grasp can grow again, is growing 
again, now that the light has dominion over all that my hands tried to hold,
and it’s running over like anointing oil, photosynthetic water, streams of green
vines tumbling over my trembling palms and the light, the light has been clouded but never 
cut off and I remember now how I noticed the first bloom on the day I got the phone call 
just when I needed it most, how the sight of it started these tears that have not stopped,
these tears that have watered my selfish soil and unfurled unfailing love like a fern 

                                                           my photo | Prospect Park

This was day 20’s contribution to NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), and it's a good summary of my April. There were some highlight-reel delights in it—like my trip to Niagara and seeing The Great Gatsby on Broadway (Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada!!)—amidst moments of crisis and grief in the lives of several dear friends. It was one of those when it rains it pours months that left my friends and I looking at each other dazed, wondering when the next shoe was going to drop. There were enough shoes dropping to fill a Foot Locker.

One day at the beginning of the month, I was in our living room, trying to hold it together after receiving some stressful news, and I looked up and saw, peeking over the top of the TV that sits in front of the windowsill, the hyacinth I’d bought at Trader Joe’s. Hyacinths are my favorite flower. Something about their starry clusters of petals feels transcendent to me. I live in a basement apartment so we don't get much natural light but I put the little jar on the street-level sill that gets the most and then promptly forgot about it.

Until that morning, while I was trying to pray through snotty tears, when I saw it. It was a shock. Like a long-distance loved one showing up at your home. An I see you moment from God. It made me cry harder, but in a good way. It was a reset: the pain is real, and so is the beauty. Somehow we will all be OK.

And then I forgot about it again with all of April’s craziness and it did, alas, die. Quite soon after that morning, actually. But it had served its purpose, if I can use such utilitarian language.

---

I was worried at the beginning about trying to do NaPoWriMo (where you write poem a day for the month of April—or miss it some days and madly catch up on others). I told myself I could cut it down to 20 total poems or even fewer if needed, but the daily discipline of trying to give shape to the chaos of my emotions and experiences was actually what I needed. Instead of an added burden, the writing sustained me. I found solace in wrestling with words. They helped me be fully present without drowning—a way to reckon with all that was happening without losing myself in it. I truly don't think I could've handled it all without the release of making art. God is so kind.

So on that note, here's a two-for-one surprise deal for you: another NaPoWriMo poem. Day 23.

Poetry, friends, and flowers: these were my oxygen this month. I started getting up an hour earlier and taking a walk first thing because I was tired of staggering out of bed last-minute and starting the day rushed and stressed. I’ve wanted to build this habit for a while, and a couple weekends ago I felt a rush of motivation that can only be explained by the Spirit because I hate that first moment of waking up to an alarm. But I had this strong sense that now is the time—now or never. So I groaned and set up my alarm and to my surprise I actually got up when it rang.

I pilgrimaged past the flowering cherry trees of Prospect Park, saw the tulips rise and fall in the glory of their short, bright lives, and laid on the grass in the botanical garden. I felt drained and empty and wondering what more I could take, and I also had this strange sense with every glimpse of beauty that I was being fed.

Here are a couple pictures of the bounty that April brought me, in hopes that it may feed you too:

In Other Words…

goodreads (book reviews)

To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism ed. by J. I. Packer (4 stars) | The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. (4 stars) | The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (5 stars)

How was your April? What moments of beauty in it sustained you?

Here’s to a new month of staying awake.

~ Aberdeen