Stump (Poem)

By Amirah David

Isaiah 6:13 “Israel will remain a stump, like that of a tree that is cut down, but the stump will be a holy seed that will grow again.”

Psalm 16:10 “For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave.”

John 15:2 “...while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

I’ve judged people who are depressed.

Yep.

And I’m a therapist.

Just a sick whisper:

“Oh ‘come on, that’s enough rest.  

What is the breath in your ribs for?

Just get up and do your best. 

There is so much to live for.

Find the gardenias.  

The lights on the river.

The toddler gardening like a ballerina. 

Last night’s prima plum sunset from the Giver.”

But then one day,

run dry from the sheer size of sorrow,

I was stunned by

not wanting to swing dance

or melt the frozen mass around my heart.

I didn’t want to pray,

and could only smile like an actress in a play.  

Joy became romcom dopamine.  

I wanted their fairy tales like a vaccine.

Bask in being 17 and sunny again, 

instead of 39 and muggy on cement,

without a breath of wet.

But with bereft sight, I could finally perceive 

the sour man turned to liquid under the eaves.

The woman, unshowered, asking for black coffee through the armor of headphones.

The hooded boy, all bones, holding his pants as he studies the cracks in the sidewalk 

like they might lead him to meaning, 

or at least the way to numb the stab of apathy.

The young mama staying alive on scraps of sisterhood as she scrolls and nurses and cries.

I could recognize the special kind of tired in their eyes.  

Like a wide stump.

A grapevine sliced to nubs, like de-fingered hands.

Can’t imagine the Spring.

Fruit a distant myth, like desert rain.

I’ve planted seeds that never grew. 

Pleaded but never knew them.

The snap peas. 

The first leaves shaved down by slugs with a craving for new.

Yes, it is true that only God gives the increase.

But did He have to wrestle so violently from me

the judgement?

The masters degree, the polished smile and jewelry cross 

from my white knuckles 

so petrified of failure that they had grown into marble fists.

Did He have to cut the fingers off the surety that I could grow my own garden?

Humble to a mere stump the human love that points out mistakes I’d never make 

but just did in the blindspot I’d kept behind.

This love is the seed that died without water. 

Rotted.

Vines gnarled and thought dead.  

But He wanted to plant. 

To prune. 

To cut down and rebuild. 

To uproot.

Gardening is battle. 

But also magic. 

And hope.

It is believing the ludicrous truth that an orchard can be born from a spit out seed.  

That the whole world’s need can be met by it.

But that sweet seed cannot self-sun or water or feed.  

Oh, honey, you are at the mercy of nature’s creed

in the palm of God.  

He wants all of you found,

and will not leave you to rot in the ground. 

He will not leave your bare rings exposed,

or your fists closed.

But He waits for the fighting to stop.

Your good to go limp.

It isn’t pretty.

But neither is gardening.  

It is dirty business.

But in the Spring the impossible begins. 

Buds from bark, work, 

leaves from dark dirt,

green from dry wood

good enough to win the fight with garden sharks.

Fruit is good and good is God, 

and He needs to grow you with that food.  

He is Father shade,

and Son who rose and gave the light,

and Holy hands upon you

tending, even with a blade, to keep you safe

and remake you.

Hear Him singing over the dirt 

like His Spirit over the deep,

keeping your future in His sight,

with the first melody for light. 

Knowing already the bounty He intends,

and extends to you,

and blends with you,

to bring forth grapes from you to feed His people.

And then depression will be slayed with the lethal blade of Grace.