Seeds of Return

In our pockets, small and dark,

Seeds like comets cooled to spark.

Carried out of famished years,

Salted by our griefs and fears.

Find the furrow, split the night,

Breathe a vow into the bite.

Lay them down with open hand—

Let the buried understand.

Every ending learns to turn;

Plant the loss and feel it burn.

Seeds of return—fall and rise,

Root the sorrow, open skies.

From the ruin, green will learn—

Light begins where we return.

Seeds of return—earth and flame,

Write tomorrow in our name.

What we loved is not adjourned—

It will bloom when we return.

Shovel sings and rain replies,

Names like rainfall, wide and wise.

Bones of winter, bent and thin,

Break to make the spring begin.

Wardens hum a working hymn,

Sap runs gold in tunnels dim.

All we thought was gone for good

Wakes beneath the patient wood.

Every ending learns to turn;

Plant the loss and feel it burn.

Seeds of return—fall and rise,

Root the sorrow, open skies.

From the ruin, green will learn—

Light begins where we return.

Seeds of return—earth and flame,

Write tomorrow in our name.

What we loved is not adjourned—

It will bloom when we return.

Hold the ground and hold your breath;

Life keeps speaking under death.

Share the water, share the sun—

Many hands, a single one.

Seeds of return—fall and rise,

Turn the hunger into wise.

From our marrow into loam,

Grow a map that leads us home.

Seeds of return—sing it plain:

Loss is soil for living grain.

What we keep, we plant and earn—

Love comes back— we return.