James Crews: Consider the Lilies

This is the unbreaking news:

today on my walk I saw

hundreds of trout lilies

breaking through leaf litter,

their spotted green leaves—

nearly translucent in the sun—

pointed upward like spears,

already turning the leftovers

of this last difficult year

into fertilizer, into food.

Consider these lilies, how

they’d never call themselves

broken simply because they

had to live in darkness

and cold for months, how

they don’t have to be told

to reach for the dappled light 

they know they need to bloom.

~

            When we’re feeling the pull of too many obligations, or the despair of having absorbed too much disturbing news on a given day, it can be useful to step out of our usual routines, and into whatever nature is available. On the morning I describe here, I had decided to go for a walk in a local nature preserve I don’t often frequent, and much to my delight, in spite of the chilly and gray day, I noticed hundreds of wildflowers known as trout lilies sprouting up between tree trunks in the leaf litter everywhere I stepped. Somehow, the persistence of these small beings, returning yet again after a long winter, and pushing their way up toward the light, gave me a profound sense of release, as I struggled to push through my own depression and anxiety. I don’t claim that a dose of nature can “cure” us of any difficulties, yet as someone who’s suffered with anxiety his whole life, I can say from years of experience that when I am able to give my attention to something or someone else outside of myself for a sustained period, I simply feel better. I notice too that my self-talk starts to change. For instance, though I had been feeling broken that winter by a difficult year of caregiving several loved ones, somehow the trout lilies gave me hard evidence, as nature often does, that just because we might have to live in darkness and cold for months doesn’t mean that we are broken. Just because we’re depressed doesn’t mean we won’t reach for the light we need when the time is right for us to emerge again. 

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Take a walk or hike, or make a circuit around the yard, bringing a notebook with you. Pause and see what living thing calls to your attention, listening deeply for any words or lines that come to you. What evidence of  gentle persistence can you find in the natural world?

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James Crews is the recipient of the Prairie Schooner Prize and Cowles Prize. His writing has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Ploughshares, and Sun Magazine.

Copyright 2024 James Crews. From Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Courage and Self-compassion (Simon and Schuster, 2024)