@evening_tale
SHINE
Somewhere in your quiet, something wants to glow / Hard times only prove how bright you really are
DEW
Done in the night before we were awake / Every grass blade weighted with a globe
ZEAL
Zeroing in on purpose like an arrow / Each moment burning with the love of work
NUMB
Nothing penetrates the surface / Under ice the river still runs
COOK
Calm returned by the act of chopping / Oil and garlic and the kitchen comes alive
MERCY
More than justice asks us to give / Every giving-up of the right to punish
INNER
In the deepest part of you, the truest voice still speaks / Nothing born outside of you belongs as much as what is in you
TENDER
Touching what was hurt with careful hands / Every nerve still raw and reachable
HOME
Hallway light left on for you / Old jacket on the chair
LAUGH
Loosening the grip the day had on us / A shaking that is half surprise and whole relief
WALK
Wind behind you and then in your face / Around the same corner as a hundred times
SELF
Something in you watches everything that happens to you / Every version of yourself contains the one before it
SNOW
Softening the world into unfamiliar shapes / Newly white and silent as held breath
DANCE
Down the hallway when the music was too good / A kind of joy that only comes unplanned
SONG
Stuck in the kitchen speakers all morning / On repeat by accident and then by choice
JOY
Just the moment, nothing borrowed / Ordinary lifted into extraordinary
FIELD
Flat under the August sky it bakes / Insects loud in the seed heads all day
SAND
Smooth and cool below the waterline / All the warmth it holds from the long afternoon
ALTER
A single decision made from the deepest part of you changes everything / Leaving a prior version of yourself behind is always bittersweet
SKY
Stretching further than any thought can reach / Keeping nothing and losing nothing either
SEED
Small enough to lose between the fingers / Everything it knows came from one other seed
BIKE
Balanced on the curb before the ride / Into the wind with a bag on the back
KIND
Keeping the soft interior available when the world is hard is the practice / In the act of choosing kindness over cleverness, something real happens
LAKE
Letting the hills reflect inside its still / A dark mirror when the clouds are heavy
TEA
Too hot at first and then exactly right / Every steep a slightly different result
ROAD
Rain turning everything to grey and silver / Overhead the sky deciding something
WARM
Welcome even on the coldest day / Arms that hold without condition
VIVID
Very here, inside the ringing present / In the color that you cannot look away from
HOPE
How it persists is the real mystery / Only light explains the way it points
DANCE
Difficulty met with movement finds a rhythm anyway / Accepting that control is partial is the first step to grace
LEAF
Letting go was always its intention / Each autumn it practices the fall
SKY
So many blues before the first star appears / Keeping the light long after the sun is gone
CHANGE
Coming to the edge of who you were takes more than bravery / Hard shifts in the ground beneath you can be a beginning
FAITH
Finding something solid when the visible gives out / A trust extended past the edge of what you know
RENEW
Returning to your center is a practice, not a destination / Each beginning carries something the last ending could not hold
DAWN
Dim room and the first bus running outside / Awake without an alarm and staying still