Calabash Lessons

Love came back like rain after dry season,
sudden, generous, smelling of red earth.
Hands reached out too fast, cups filled to the brim,
and some things spill when you don’t pause to taste.

Silence arrived not as punishment,
but as bush growing where feet once passed.
No road disappears to wound the traveler,
sometimes it closes to keep the soil alive.

I learned that care can lean too close,
that warmth can crowd a healing flame.
What I called presence felt like weight,
what I meant as home felt like walls.

Still, kindness is not cancelled by restraint.
*You don’t have to be open or vulnerable again to be kind*.
The moon does not chase the night in fear,
it stays bright enough, and lets distance breathe.

So I set my hands back at my sides,
not empty, not ashamed, just steady.
Love remains, but barefoot now,
knowing when to walk, knowing when to wait.

Some lessons don’t arrive with joy or tears,
they arrive like evening ,calm, undecided.
Not everything that steps away is lost;
some things return only after rest