Something Shifted

I have walked through months of shadowed doubt,
where certainty fell like leaves in frost--
drifting, brittle, beyond my grasp.
I reached, I clutched, I tried to hold,
but time is wind, and I was told
to let it go.

To loosen fingers, unclench the mind,
to yield to tides I could not turn.
A lesson learned in soft surrender--
how fragile it is, how fierce it burns,
to ask for help, to take what’s given
not as burden, but as grace.

And grace it was, in many hands,
a kindness carried, heart to heart.
Hope like embers, dim then bright,
love like roots beneath the night--
unseen, yet strong, unshaken still.

And so I plant a softer world,
not thorned with fear, nor hate entwined,
but something gentler, something whole,
a garden first within my soul.

And if our paths should one day cross,
I will greet you as I would the dawn--
not stranger, not other, not name nor foe,
but kin, a traveler, a light unknown.

For love is not a single flame,
but a fire we keep,
and pass along.