Open your hands to golden greenery of sunlight

and let it spill power into your waiting heart.

This is your day to be free. This is your moment

to complete the circle from soul to body.

This is the time of your life, when all is still extraordinary

and nothing of it is forgotten save for

trenchant anger or its cousin, bitterness

fraught with selfishness.

Accept the labyrinthine past as big wind,

how it shimmied over your skin, kept you alert, swept you on.

May the spell of life exhort fine angels to arrive

and manifest their honorable works (though laboring in secret).

Then do each task given you, a being wrought of humanness,

and peace will blossom, love will ease from your lips

like succor, like bravery, like sweetness.

But first open your hands to sky and its creatures

and waters and their upwellings of mastery and

the hidey holes of earth where small things

mean more miracles, surprises from the bosom

of this earth you dared to adore despite seeking release.

Then with tender, smart feet stand strong

upon the ground and all its offerings.

Remember when you thought gravity was a ball and chain?

Remember when you were given to your children

despite your ignorance and you all learned to rise up?

What do you think now, woman, your hair a-glimmer with silver

as you greet the glorious trembling of this day?

Have you even had enough or do you crave more of this life?

Open your hands to the greenery of spring’s sunshine,

step out and shout your joy, you persistent quibbler!

You breathe, create, listen, speak like all creatures;

you will walk as spirit in flesh dancing

into the world, thankful.

Praise the sheath of energy which you were given.

You will find this moment shining with triumph

and softened by your deep bow of humility to this day.

Photos by Cynthia Guenther Richardson copoyright 2024