Serendipity
An ode to the purple mountain saxifrage
You hear the roar beyond the rocks,
water gnawing the world down to size,
a white mouth unmaking stone,
spitting mist into the wind.
My hand traces the scorched basalt—
a memory of fire, volcanic heat
long-cooled to black, bare but for one
fragile breath of Arctic bloom.
Even in the deepest shadow,
something endures—
a root, a green pulse,
a quiet defiance against the burn.
Published in Poets’ Espresso Review: Volume 15, Issue 1
Author’s Notes: During my visit to Iceland’s Godafoss Falls, I serendipitously encountered the purple mountain saxifrage as I descended from an accessible outcropping of stone. This flower, the first to bloom in the Arctic spring, is hailed by Canadian botanist Nicholas Polunin, who states the saxifrage “must be reckoned among the world’s greatest beauties, especially as it stands out in its unusually bleak and desolate surroundings.”
Now, we all know what it is to be scorched: by grief, by change, by the sudden breaking of what we thought was solid. We know what it is to be stripped back to the bare rock of ourselves. But the burn is not the end. Like the saxifrage rooting itself in volcanic stone, something in us still stirs.
We bloom not because the world is gentle, but because we are. Because something within us believes in the next thaw, the next light, the next chance to unfurl. Even after fire. Even after fracture. Even in the coldest wind.
May this poem stand as a reminder: the harshness of our landscapes does not dictate the limits of our growth. What survives in shadow can still blaze into color. And what has been scorched can still begin again.
As always, a huge THANK YOU for taking the time to read my work. Without you, my voice would be a whisper just floating in the air.
Is that defiance, or the same life energy, just in a different shape?
:)
Clean as the air and wind, firm as the basalt rock, the heart trembles here.