Labyrinth

I don’t believe in losing hope.
I believe in finding it

perhaps by making pesto
or deadheading irises
when I can be surrounded
by what’s still alive:

my garden, defying a childhood
framed in the gutter’s litter
tossed newspapers soaked in rain,
smudged in dog shit. The dead-end

street around the corner
offered paradise—an empty lot
with flowering weeds.
Was that a loss

of hope? Or a grasping
for what I longed for
when I thought the world
could stretch its lazy arms

and deliver, all in good time.
With age, time thins, seedlings
harden, shrivel--leaving
only wisdom, a path emerging

through tangled roots
leading to the adage: what is,
is. All that changes
is how to breathe, choose

the dark center of the iris,
the nectar, the bees.

D. Dina Friedman’s newest books are the poetry collection Here in Sanctuary—Whirling, (Querencia Press) and the short-story collection Immigrants (Creators Press), which was first runner up in the short-story category for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her previous books include two YA novels, Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux) and one book of poetry Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press). Dina has published in over a hundred literary journals including Rattle, Salamander, The Sun, Mass Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, Cider Press Review, Lilith, and Rhino. She has received two Best of the Net and four Pushcart Prize nominations.