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Only when it rains do coyote willows
turn their brightest red, as they do
today in the drizzle and gray, and oh,
how I fall in love with them now,
these slender stems that know
how to regenerate from brokenness,
bringing their brilliant vermillion
to the dim of the day.
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Let us live this way. When it is dark,
let us find what is brightest in us
and share it with the soggy world,
a thicket of grace in the midst of gloom,
not fancy, but rampant and so deeply willing
to share radiance, to dazzle, to blaze.