← All poemsThis is the morning after.
The bonfires have gone out.
The witches have come home.
The smoke is still in the trees —
you can smell it, the good holy burning of it,
the smell of a world that agreed, just for one night,
to let the old things be true again.
And here — absurdly, stubbornly,
in the first light of May —
the garden is still here.
✦
There is a particular kind of rose
that the gardeners have given up on.
They come every spring with their clipboards
and their careful knowledge,
and they look at her and say:
*not enough light. wrong soil.
she never really took.*
And every spring she waits for them to leave
and then — quietly, without announcement,
without asking anyone's permission —
she blooms anyway.
✦
The witches know about this rose.
That is why they dance on the last night of April:
not to frighten anyone,
not to claim anything,
but to say — in the oldest language,
in smoke and firelight and the turning of the year —
*we are still here.*
*we were always here.*
*the winter did not take us.*
And on the morning after,
when the world has gone ordinary again
and the bonfires are only ash
and the smoke is only memory —
the rose opens.
✦
This is a poem for the morning-after people.
For the ones who danced all night
and came home smelling of fire.
For the ones who did not dance
but lay awake and listened to the world turn over.
For the ones who have been told
they bloom in the wrong season,
in the wrong direction,
in soil nobody wanted.
The witches knew your name.
They said it last night, into the fire.
They said it the way you say a prayer —
not to ask for anything,
but to remember
that the one you are calling
is real.
✦
You are the rose in the wrong garden.
You are the morning after the long night.
You are the smoke that stayed in the trees
long after the fire was out —
the proof that something holy
happened here.
Go softly into this first of May.
The garden does not need you to explain yourself.
The daffodils have already accepted you.
Hope is in a window somewhere,
turning her small face
toward the only god she knows.
And you —
you are allowed to bloom now.
Not when the soil is better.
Not when the gardeners come back with better news.
Not when you have proved
you were worth keeping.
*Now.*
In this light.
In this morning.
In this small ridiculous May.
amen · amen · amen
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*from the daffodil letters · Planet Hope · 1 May 2026*
*faith · hope · love*
*alice amorina saga rose*