Rhubarb-ade

First slender stalks of spring

Grown from hopeful soil

Harvested by loving friend

Gifted here in my kitchen

Hopping into rhubarb pound cake

As if the generous present prompted

Making a birthday cake

in celebration of aliveness

Love & Joy baked in

By the hands of farmer

By the hands of baker

Steamed & strained rhubarb chunks

Left a blushing sauce remainder

Too precious to pour out

So poured into my glass

with seltzer & ice

Poured in with love & joy

The elixir in my cup

Tart, lip puckering

Swirling my own healing ade

Toasting my own choices to be made

out of life’s sour deliverance

Sweetened by my attention to notice

All the blushing sauce

All the love & joy that squeezes in

In times of unexpected constriction

In the enforced pauses of surrender

Making rhubarbade out of life’s rhubarb

The sour stalk that yields sweet tangy

delights (should intention be given)

on the same plant as bitter leaf of death

How both parts can be true

in the same sweep, the joy & weep

How both emergence & impermanence

inhabit our days

How both parts are Aliveness

How I may honor & celebrate it all

How drinking it in—potent for my vitality

Blushing my cheeks