You know now

Haws push through
tips of thorny branches, turn from green
to red, scent of meadowsweet

rises on wings of gladness
while pink blackberry blossoms
emerge with a song they’ve been waiting

for months to sing. You know now
that love erupts into the world as color
and melody, that you have not

been abandoned, but awakened
to a symphony of hues,
to make a home in the space

between notes, a doorway
to this quiet communion.

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This article also appears in the April 2022 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 87, No. 4, page 17). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.