Photograph by Patricia Joynes

by Tara Campbell

there’s always something
greening, rooting, dying,
burrowing.
Something silent,
holding more
than you think you can bear.

But you plant, you water,
you watch for something slow,
laborious, snaking, reaching,
until it seems like effort
dissolves to inevitable
when the tip of the sprout
breaks through to the sun.

And even then, sometimes
it withers, and still
you have to
try again,
because sometimes
it blooms.

About the photographer: Patricia Joynes frequents the Blue Ridge Parkway shooting nature photography. Her photos are on book covers, in annual Blue Ridge Parkway calendars, a National Geographic online story, and in literary journals including two covers for County Lines (2015-2020), Evening Paper (cover) Oracle Fine Arts Review, The Sunlight Press, DASH, RiverSedge, San Pedro River Review, THE SUN, and Blue Mesa Review, among others. Find more on her site.