The Gem of Your Life Singing Out

Today and yesterday are fertile soil
for tomorrow,
like a community garden,
vines weaving and reaching.
Every memory, every shared experience
lives and breathes beneath our feet,
a compost pile where nothing is lost,
everything is used and reused,
begins a new life.

At the rising light of dawn,
your neighbor makes that first brushstroke
for the orange lizard mural.
This gives you faith that the world
is being created yet again,
that every layer of paint points to
blue skies of hope,
that we can seal the cracks,
paint over flaking chips.

Maybe even our mistakes
can be a rumpled, well-thumbed
guidebook for our children,
knowing that the very best of us
lives on in the vibrant colors
of their many tomorrows.
I would say, embrace the wrong memo
you typed for that internship.

The Gem of Your Life Singing Out

It led to working far too late,
but being there to share a glass of bubbly
when that big, book contract came through.
Ignore the meaningless banter
at that fancy dinner party,
when you felt embarrassed to say
that you were just volunteer teaching for no pay.
Those months made you,
stripped away ego and artifice,
connected you to students who knew far more
about the world than you.
I would say, get your hands dirty,
let go of outside influences.
Hidden within the battered, plywood box
of past choices
is that little voice,
the gem of your life singing out
in faceted angles of reflected light.