The great arms of the cottonwoods release fragments of
Themselves across the evening sky,
As if the edges of clouds could
Lift from the flutter of leaves
And drift out and away,
As if giving up fragments of oneself
Is soft and easy,
Like the bend of the river
Around the greening banks
On a gentle summer day.

Like giving up is not brutal
Or bones cracked on the cold tile of the
Bathroom floor
When you can’t even do this anymore
And there are tears laid around you like bright
Flowers of pain
Spilled and wilted and dried up again
And you curl into yourself
And simply wait for
The end.

There is a giving up in that roughness and there is a giving up in
The radiance of the sun
Emanating from the warm rocks at the edge of the cliffs,
Lifted off the backs of the verdant hills,
And there is a giving up that is a gift
And not an acquiescence.

And thus it is,
Like the river’s edge,
I give up this familiar space
To the flooding of the rains;

Take the banks of all I know
And allow their swift erosion
Down to the vulnerability
Of my soul.

I give up the strongholds
Of dread
And cast these crafted layers to the edges of the stars

And I won’t give up the openness of my heart,

Or the way I can see so far
Across this wild, limitless wilderness
Of hope,

Or how it grows
Within the shelter of your hands.