When It Looks Like the End

How do we live our lives? How do we meet our mortality? Inspiration from a cherry tree ...
When It Looks Like the End
for Stumpy, and maybe for you

To survive. To not only survive,
but to bring joy. To bloom despite
our own hollowing.
To bloom despite the erosion
of the world in which we grew.
I speak of a cherry tree, but
I also, perhaps, speak of you-
how you have made of your life
not just a stump, but a story.
How in hostile conditions,
despite brackish odds,
you’ve found the drive to grow.
How your words and your actions,
like cuttings, might take on a life
of their own-a legacy
of resilience that finds a home
in the soil of the lives still here.
In this way, you continue
to flourish and be known.
In this way you are not here
and ever here. Gone
and never gone. In this way
one life is a blossom that disappears
and returns on a branch not its own.
None of us live forever.
Still the chance to give the best of ourselves
away. This is how we go on.
for more information about Stumpy, the beloved cherry tree, visit www.wusa9.com/article/feature...

[@KristinPedemonti]

"Not just a stump, but a story." ❤ Thank you for the beauty and light you shine and share. Your life is a blossom, Rosemerry. ❤

[@rosemerryt]

Ah, thank you sister blossom ...

[@joyalmulheron]

Indeed, this is how we go on. Thank you for being a light ❤

[@rosemerryt]

Thank you, Joyal! You and Evermore inspired this poem!!!

[@SmithBrookHollow]

Beautiful Rosemerry ❤

[@rosemerryt]

thank you, Deb ❤❤

[@1z1zmike]

Lovely…very moving 🙂🙏

[@rosemerryt]

thank you, friend

[@joannesnyder3717]

ON my birthday a treasure of a poem.....when it looks like the end may we all continue blossoming in memorable story!! joanne

[@katiestutzman4470]

It’s amazing how many many people can be separately connected to something, then a poem comes along that unites us emotionally. Thanks Rosemerry ❤️

[@rosemerryt]

thank you for this--I had never thought of a poem in this way, and now I think I always will!

[@LMc1177]

🥲