​Spring comes slowly
 
Spring comes so slowly in Minnesota. It forces patience upon you, however unwilling you are. Every morning you wake up to another sprinkling of snow, no matter how much you long for the flamboyant beauty of your crabapple tree in full bloom. You are tired of the waiting. You say, “I can’t take it anymore. I cannot handle this for one more day.”
 
Especially after such a long winter. A long, bitter winter filled with trials and tribulations that scraped your insides out and left you raw.
 
Don’t you deserve some easy beauty? The hot sun on your shoulders, flowers blooming, butterflies floating through the garden.
 
But the world owes you nothing. If you want to find beauty, you’re obliged to notice the simple, subtle beauty of spring coming slowly. So, fine. What else can you do? You take your walk in the cold, blustery day and you notice the loons are on the lake. That’s spring. And you see that the fat robins have eaten every single berry on the tree since the last time you looked. That’s spring, isn’t it. And by the time you walk around the entire lake, and your thighs are numb with cold, you are entirely sick of trying to notice the simple things.
 
The subtle beauty is actually making you angry, because why does it have to be so hard.

Then you see something, a stalk of dead grass blowing in the cold gray air, waving to you, holding a beauty so understated that it makes you want to cry. And you walk past it, thinking, “no I won’t stop and acknowledge this. I want the gaudy in-your-face-ness of summer.” But it comes slowly. And the simple beauty is so touching that you retrace your steps to try to capture it in a photo.
 
Of course, the photo cannot capture what you see, what you feel – but it is there; you cannot unsee it. You must continue your day being grateful for the small things, because what else can you do. There is no forcing spring. It owes you nothing. You take what you can get.

I keep them in my bathroom.

​For most of the summer there it is: a mason jar filled milkweed. Caterpillars in various stages of their life-cycle, munching away. I have them in my bathroom so I can shut the door - to keep them in - and the cats out. But the door usually gets left open.

I tend to count them whenever I go in the room. Has a new one hatched? Are they all here?

I discover one is missing, and a heaviness settles in my heart. I count and re-count. It's not there.

Several days later, I find a caterpillar on the stairs. Quite a long journey from the bathroom for such a small creature. I gently scoop it up and bring it back to the milkweed. When I set it on a leaf, it curls up. It doesn't move.

Starved to death.
​ 
My heart aches.

I could have done more to prevent this from happening.

Your White Fragility
by Mary Pow
 
Are you fragile –
Will you break?
An ooey gooey egg.
Ooze into a hole,
 
And hide away.
 
Or is it possible –
Perhaps I’m wrong?
Your fist raised high
You find you’re strong.
 
And you uncurl.
 
Your shell is cracked,
You stand up tall.
That precious shell,
The pieces fall.
 
Thank God, they fall.
 
Released from shame,
You say his name
“George Floyd”
Again, “George Floyd”
 
And you move forward.
 
Look at you –
You’re in the street.
That shell is crushed
Beneath your feet.
 
And your eyes open.
 
Silence does harm,
You see. You warn,
“I won’t stay silent.”
You are reborn.