My Orchard Defrosting

I see myself once a seed flung by accident,

a wind-tossed current in the mouth of spring,

buried in soil that did not ask my name.

The world pressed down with boots and silence,

 and I mistook the weight for surrender.

Years passed like migrating birds,

 each one a feathered lesson I could not grasp.

 I chased them, thinking purpose was a winged thing,

 always just beyond the reach of my outstretched question

needing an answer.

In youth, I mistook bruises for failure,

a cracked mirror of rejection,

the fog of love lost in translation,

the job that paid in hours but not in nourishment for the soul.

 I wore disappointment like wet yarn,

heavy and clinging, never knowing it was weaving me.

Time…

Is a patient sculptor. It carves with the chisel of hindsight,

revealing the spired monument hidden in the stone.

Now…

Retired from the ill-chosen race that lured me,

I sit beneath the orchard I did not know I planted.

Each tree bears fruit shaped like old wounds,

a rot-laden misunderstanding falling,

making room for the ripened by the sun of reflection.

And…

There it is: the disappointments that taught me boundaries,

the failure that taught me grace,

the silence that taught me how to listen.

Purpose did not arrive with trumpets.

It crept in like a soft, inevitable dusk,

casting long shadows that finally made sense.

The fruit of my life holds ready to be kneaded into liquid flow.

I am not the hero of my youth’s mythology.

I am the lantern keeper, lighting paths for those still wandering.

My purpose is not a crown,

but a compass made from broken directions.

And in this late hour,

when the world grows quiet enough to hear its own heartbeat,

I find that the most important work was not what I built,

but what I became.