Up Through, by Liz Kornelsen

The Loveliest Plant In The World 2, by Ewa Tarsia (Canada) 2020

​Up Through           
 
“And the loveliest plant in the world”, a painting by Ewa Tarsia, depicts a rare flower, the Tiare apetahi, found on an island in French Polynesia. This flower has become a symbol of my journey from darkness to light.
 
Tiare apetahi
jewel of the island, 
under the “sky with soft light”
on mountains of low clouds and waterfalls,
ensconced in a shrub of glossy leaves 
sprawling outward in graceful arcs. 
 
A wisp of morning light nudges the sleeping white hand 
of the flower to open. 
Listen          for the soft cracking as the fingers unfurl. 
 
The Taire apetahi once grew in abundance 
on the plateaus of Mount Temahani
inspiring awe and wonder 
richly celebrated in legend and dance.
 
Souvenir hunters came and vandals and poachers,
plundered the treasure until of the thousands 
only twenty remained 
the rest, lost forever
to greed and careless plucking of that which did not
belong to them. Cages were built to protect the last vestiges 
of a flower that can grow in no other place on earth.
 
My own tumble into darkness is foreshadowed:
stirrings of unease, a feeling that my body doesn’t 
belong to me, a sense of doom, a struggle to focus.
I meet the dark with resistance
Why me? What have I done? 
 
The more I resist, the more I feel enclosed by the metal cage.     
I am a drifting shadow.
I do not so much fear death (indeed it holds sway)
as I fear the process
surviving minutes…seconds
each moment a slow crawl forward to what?
more darkness?
 
One night I hold hands with a star, flinging
its fierce light into the hungry face of the dark.
I gather courage from the starlight and dare to hope
that I can swing open the door of the clanging cage
and give the sinister tyrant the slip.
 
until
this bright summer afternoon a strange energy 
bubbles up in my body like bread dough rising
I sink into a chair while the yeast rises, swells and surges. 
Something has to give…
the geyser erupts.
On the floor heaving with sobs, 
ocean waves crash over me, unleashing the memory 
that’s been stirring inside me
of my innocence stolen as a young child 
a flower plucked that should have been protected
encouraged to flourish, to follow the light.
 
The arc of my spiral into darkness is complete.
I rise from the floor like a newborn calf
testing the strength of my limbs.
 
Resistance gives way to acquiescence, my first steps wobbly,
my path uncertain, but there is a path and there is dappled light, 
light enough for one step followed by another. 
I see that darkness is not my enemy, 
that it is a gentle holding, an enfolding 
cocooning me, preparing me for a shedding 
of the old skin, the parchment containing a false story
that I am unseen, unloved, unworthy.
The time has come to say hello to the dark,
embrace it as another kind of light,
a kind light that breaks open the buried seed with a soft cracking.
I see that without darkness, there can be no light.
I emerge like a butterfly out of the chrysalis,
to spread wings, float, fly and soar through skies on silken sails
ephemeral yet imbued with astounding strength 
to power through arduous migrations. 
 
Tiare Apetahi
          
I am 
tender shoot
slow emergence
from deep sleep in roiling
black earth, patient longing
through damp dormant dreams
urgent pulsation of growth, persistent
pressing upward through layers of soil.
 
I rise
lean into light
promise unfurling petal by petal
to full blossom, exquisite wild wonder.

Liz Kornelsen

This poem first appeared at The Whisky Blot.
​
Liz Kornelsen is a prairie poet living in Winnipeg MB in Treaty One Territory. She is the author of Arc of Light and Shadow: Poems with Art. She draws immense inspiration to write and paint from the diverse and astonishing facets of nature. Her work has seen the light of day in various journals including The Braided Way and The Trinity Review.