Rising by Debra Darby

When we make daily attempts to modify and improve what we can control, hope may build determination and grit—the ability to bounce back and remain resolute despite setbacks and death. Rising, a poem by Debra Darby, emphasizes the significance of optimism and endurance.

Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer.

Wendy Brown-Baez on how poetry groups provide inspiration and support during difficult times

When we went into lockdown in 2020, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I needed a poetry group to inspire me and to push me into writing beyond the writing I do in my writing for healing circles. I was overwhelmed by emotions, especially after the murder of George Floyd, compounded by learning more about the impact of climate emergency.

Grief, rage, fear, sorrow, frustration, and disappointment were intertwined with gratitude for the opportunity to stay home. I needed the grounding of a consistent poetry practice. I invited several poets I knew personally to a bi-weekly poetry circle on Zoom. 

The urgency of the times can make it difficult to put our responses into articulate and meaningful words. These poets show up and despite personal heartaches and losses, are fun and easy-going. They have professional writing aspirations and are willing to offer wise and enthusiastic feedback. We check in about our writing practice and share our challenges and discoveries. We chat about form and imagery; we share what is happening in our lives; we comment on local and world events. I knew our writing would be deep, engaging, exciting, and challenging, but I didn’t know how much the support and encouragement would mean to me, and I think to each one of us, whether or not I end up with a poem I want to keep.

Debra Darby is a poet who crossed the threshold of grief and yet writes of the beauty of life that is embedded in all we love and care about, with a touch of the transcendent. She affirms that what she envisions for herself and everyone as reachable and as necessary as breathing. I already knew Debra but when she participated in a workshop at the library, I heard her yearning to transform difficult moments into beauty. 

I chose Debra’s poem because it is hope we need as we move forward into what feels uncertain, unstable, and malleable, frightening and disheartening, as well as innovative and wonderful, as we become oriented toward community and care of each other and the earth. Her line about how hope has realistic expectations of the caterpillar while imagining the beauty of the stained-glass wings of the butterfly spoke to me. Also, that hope is practical, gets out the pot to make soup. It is not just a feeling but also a doing, a doing that extends past our limited time on earth to the eternal possibility beyond. 

-Wendy Brown-Baez

Rising
Debra Darby

It is dawn and the ball of glowing orange
Emerges through black branches. A powerful, 
Mysterious force spins the planet on its
Invisible axis, turning the earth in marbled

Blue swirls of human misery;
Sickness, despair, abuse, torture. 
Animals, caught under the wheels of 
Our uncaring, vanish forever, extinct.  

Children starve with eyes that 
Have lost the desire to ask. Hearts break into 
Chards of silence, never seeming to recover.
Good succumbs to evil.

Yet hope can see through the darkness,
No matter how horrific,
And call it the beginning of 
Peace, the threshold of understanding.

Hope does not expect 
the caterpillar to fly, 
Yet she holds the image of 
Stained-glass wings in her mind. 

Hope accepts things just as they are―
Beauty and ugliness―
But takes the pot out and 
Makes soup for the hungry.

With hope, is transformation,
A muddy pool scattered with exquisite white lotus, who 
Warmly welcome others as they  
Rise from their brown slumber.

Hope turns our gaze to the power of birds 
Defying their weight in flight. To our ancestors in
The plant kingdom, who speak to us in color and texture
About change and season. 

Hope shoots a bright arrow forward – 
through stony mountains, earthquakes,
Even through death ―

Into joy.

***

Debra Darby has written poetry since she was thirteen years old. More recently, she has devoted more time and energy to writing. A lift-long dancer, she currently dances in Free Motion, an improvisational group. Debra has worked as a healing storyteller in Minneapolis inner city schools and in the Golden Eagle Program at the American Indian Center, seeking to bring healing, hopeful and inspirational messages to young children through story.

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