Blooming From the Bones and Other Poems

by Hayley Rawnsley

BLOOMING FROM THE BONES

I stare at bare earth,

withered from the weeping

hunched over by an ache

of hope, reborn just to be

abandoned

heart of haze—I can’t see

deserts blooming, or even your face

as I grieve these gardens

that turned into graves.

Mourning by moonlight,

dark night,

a shelter for my soul, until

your silence halts my sobbing

electric hush behind the stage,

and your whisper,

“I know,”

takes me back

to vineyard visions,

branches forming where you breathe

flowers blooming from the bones

of dead dreams that keep beating

in a daughter far from home.

Like a mustard seed, I’m floating,

waiting for your wind to flow

when my faith will be replanted

and once again, I’ll grow.

TULIP PETALS

Dusk falls in plumes

of periwinkle, the melancholy

of memories dimming.

The anemone blinks

its sleepy eye to grasp

a dream, triggered

every time I breathe

jasmine—the kind creeping through

my window each February.

Remnants of singed stories

peppered through the constellations

of cosmos and camellia,

seeds of hope that haunt

in their battle with the weeds—

the sorrow that left me shattered,

makes me cry

tulip petals at your feet.

I don’t know how to mend

the begonia’s broken heart, or mine.

What even grows after grief?

Please just meet me

in this garden;

touch my soul with love

or joy

or beauty—

whatever it is I need.

HAYLEY RAWNSLEY

Hayley Rawnsley is an artist and writer in Los Angeles who is passionate about helping people connect with God through creativity. She's the author of the poetry collection A Wild Unraveling and has been published in Calla Press, YMI Today, and The Way Back to Ourselves. You can find Hayley on Instagram @desertsblooming, on her Substack, and at her website desertsblooming.com.