I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
I love how Markova opens her poem with a courageous enthusiasm for facing fear and living life fully, but instead of leading to power or fame, that zeal leads her to compassion.
There was a time when “inhabiting my days” would have meant grand adventures preferably in exotic locations, but more and more I begin to understand what it means “to allow my living to open me.” Instead of striving to be the towering oak tree, bold and prominent, “I choose to risk my significance” by becoming the soil instead; “to live so that which came to me as seed, goes to the next as blossom.”
It seems dehiscence is the nature of our lives. We grow through our youth, facing our fears and swelling with possibilities, until finally we burst open (usually through some old wound) with understanding and compassion. If we remain indehiscent, then our only hope of release becomes decay or predation. In the end, failing to rend is to die an unlived life.
How do you seek to contribute meaning to life? What seeds do you bring to blossom? What blossoms do you pass on as fruit?
