“The trees remind you that growth takes patience. Let the wind teach you it’s okay to change direction. Let the flowers show you that every season has its time. Let the ocean prove you can be gentle and strong. And let every sunrise remind you that no darkness lasts forever. Let the trees remind you that growth takes patience.”

—Author unknown — a passage that has circulated on social media for years in several wordings; the closing thought traces back to Ursula K. Le Guin’s “no darkness lasts forever.”

That’s the whole sermon. Nothing in nature apologizes for taking its time. Nothing out there confuses softness with weakness. So here is the poem it pulled out of me — an argument, really, that we don’t have to invent a way to live. We only have to imitate what’s already doing it well.

Remember, the sun keeps a promise

Go stand where the tall trees stand
and watch how slowly they grow.
Nothing green was ever hurried —
patience is all that they know.
Let the wind lay a hand on your face
and turn you loose of your plan.
Changing your mind is not weakness;
it’s the bravest turn in a man.
Let the flowers keep their own clock,
blooming, then letting it go.
There is a season for everything,
even the seasons that come slow.
Let the ocean tell you the secret
that gentle and strong get along —
one hand can cradle a swimmer,
the other can carry a song.
And when the night leans on your ribs
and you count each hour awake,
remember the sun keeps a promise
it has never once failed to make.
So be a tree in your waiting.
Be wind when the road bends wrong.
Be a flower that trusts its own season.
Be water — both gentle and strong.
Be a sunrise for somebody’s darkness.
Be the small stubborn light that stays.
That’s the whole of the human lesson:
we grow by the giving of days.

…

DCG