We are very lucky here at Brooklyn Herborium to work with Herbal Crafters who are also passionate and talented artists, writers, poets, singers, bakers. Raisa and Krista are two of them and we’re happy to share their work.
For months, underneath layers of snow,
the roots have rewired themselves.
Now they reach for something I only know how to call light,
or maybe we can call it love, though I’ve never known
a love like this one:
crocuses poking out from grey slush,
pushing through empty potato chip bags, empty bottles, discarded styrofoam.
I catch the purple blooms though
the blackened bars of Central Park’s gate.
It’s a normal day, and by normal I mean full of joy & pain
& human stumbling. I am having human thoughts:
rent & heartbreak & how best to cut an onion.
I guess sometimes we grow too fast at the edges,
add too much slack to the rope.
Just a few days earlier, caught in my own unfolding
I googled, “the science of blooming,”
learned how the instabilities in cells
are what shape the roots, bend the tissues
like fish tugging on a fishing pole.
At the end of the day
there is no reason for those flowers emerging
except quiet grace
and maybe the reminder to look,
for there are so many reasons
to stay beneath the ground.
Still, something beckons
for us to come forward:
warm water rising to the surface,
an elastic wire coil, a dancer’s leap.
I wake to a mid-April snowstorm
and think of rising.
Writing by Raisa Imogen
Raisa Imogen was born in Portland, OR, grew up in Chicago, and currently lives in Queens. She is the co-founder of Siren Magazine. Her poetry and other work can be found at www.raisaimogen.net.
Illustration by Krista Dragomer
Krista Dragomer is an Ohio-born mixed media artist living and working in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Her work can be seen at www.kristadragomer.com