for LB, LI, and LS
we are not the girls we were
now with sorrow-hollowed faces
and sufferings’ silver threads
mingling with the gold
yet we would not be the women we are
with laughter-deepened eyes
and arms made strong
by love’s labours lived
were it not for the wild wonder
writ in scars upon our hearts:
we are carried through every grief
that haunts the dark
The featured image, “the new season’s fashions,” is courtesy of Amelia Freidline and is used with her kind permission for Cultivating.
Amelia M. Freidline lives in the Kansas City suburbs with her parents and a feisty wee terrier named for the tallest mountain in Scotland. She studied journalism, English, and history at the University of Kansas and has worked as a word herder and comma wrangler in food media throughout her professional career. She’s a founding member of The Poetry Pub and has helped edit poetry collections for Bandersnatch Books. She is an amateur poet and writer, a photographer of faeryland, and a wielder of butter, and has self-published several small collections of original writing and photography. Raised on Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, Sayers, Conan Doyle and Wodehouse, Amelia hopes to be British if she grows up. She enjoys trees, adventures, marmalade, and great conversations. She loves Jesus because He loved her first.
This is beautiful, Amelia! So encouraging <3