Four writers from the collective, Wise Women Write share thoughts about Spring and creating space for light.
Beauty of Spring
Amel Tafsout
After so many weeks of rain, I feel revived by these first spring days. The sky is wearing its azureus color, and the trees are waking up from their sleep. In one day, they transformed themselves, dressed in their most magnificent shimmering leaves and letting their blossoms burst to celebrate the awakening. The lawns covered with fresh grass look like a velvet jade carpet of bright green with tiny wildflowers. People are coming out of their homes starting to work on their garden making sure to decorate them with the gorgeous colorful flowers. Singing Birds are flying, interacting with each other, and announcing that the spring is back. I love seeing the tree blossoms in white and pink; the tulip tree rising, opening its gorgeous pink blossoms looking like bells of silk petals.
The weeping willows are wearing their lacy leaves, bending on a small lake giving shade to everyone. Why do they have such a sad name? I would call them the lacey whispering willow. Life is back, joy is here. My heart is open. Let’s breathe the spring breeze!
Anne B. Jeffries
The cherry Blossoms
Lilt white around their edges
Pink tunneling down
Silky plum petals
Spiral towards their soft centers
Brown stamens stand up
Lynnea Paxton-Honn
New blooms in this vintage yard – surprises. Tiny white blossoms climb the wire fabric draping the cement wall. Clusters light the drab gray. “Look,” I say, “Look, we have new blooms!” I am excited. Every Spring the yard presents us with something brilliant and new – a treasure missed by the weed whacker or mower. The soil is so moist, and nutrient filled, home to earthworms accidentally uncovered as weeds are pulled.
I am entranced, enchanted, bewitched, charmed, enamored.
AV Singer
Bumble bees
Connect dot to dot
Flower to flower
Not a care
About dallying visitors
They earn their name.
Honey bees
Make plans
Hovering
Deciding, diving
Or flying elsewhere
Unceasing, determined.
I pause
Sit on my walnut stump
Mesmerized warm
By sunshine
Lulled by beesong
The exquisite dance
Brings peace.
Peace
Follows me indoors
Baby lemon trees
Stretch on a windowsill
Safely sprouted in
An empty Toasted Nori container.
A young grapefruit tree
Reminds me with
A sweet scent of citrus
I am thirsty now.
Please water me.
I counsel
A tiny avocado
Growing next to an older
Brother
I am going to trim you
Right here
Be prepared.
Nature
Inside and out
Becomes my family
My heart swells with love
Love for bees
Love for trees
Love for Spring.
Simplify to Amplify
Amel Tafsout
All my life I moved to various places, cities, and countries. I packed and unpacked, repacked then packed, repacked and unpacked again. I needed to get rid of so much, pieces of memories, giving books and clothes away, leaving furniture behind. What an amazing feeling to be able to do so. I remember my nomadic ancestors, who had nothing, they faced hardship and challenging weather and managed to live with less. The feeling of simplifying my life starts with having less.
I never heard the term “hoarding” until I came to the US. Why keep so much stuff when it would be great to let other people in need enjoy it, and feel the freedom to have less?
Having the flood in my storage unit enabled me to release more stuff.
The more I give things away, the more I amplify my life. I feel light, free, and at peace. My life is amplified with my memories and my life experience. That is what I will take with me. Loving people, beautiful moments, laughter, and kindness.
Anne B. Jeffries
A jutting cliff edge
My body the narrow ledge
Itself
Nothing beside
Or above
Or below
Except
Everything
The sea, a perpetual cycle of depth and layer
All metaphors exhausted
The sky
A wide, domed light show that shoots
Gulls across its face
All the previous noise released as music
Lynnea Paxton-Honn
How could she get this across to her audience? Such a big concept – PEACE. Too many words just detract – words create unrest as brains worry to get understanding.
PEACE
Even one thought can distort the unity and cohesion of PEACE.
PEACE is unconditional Love. Is that too simple? PEACE is not the absence of antagonism but the fullness of Joy. It is our true HOME – our infinite, eternal dwelling space.
AV Singer
Pesky fleas jump. Their burning bites instigate a purge, an urge to rid this house, and consequently my mind, of all that no longer matters.
Demented flies swim upside down across the newly serene floors in a mad attempt to capture my attention. “Persist, adapt, transform.”
I text my children. “I feel a burning desire to simplify.” They’ve seen it before, this need to get rid of dusty, outgrown treasures to amplify Light.
If you are interested in reading more from the writers in Wise Women Write, here is the link: