Blooming From Ashes

by Marlee Malone

The ʻōhiʻa lehua blooms bravely.
When the world shows its fire mouth.
Where the earth splits open
and what was once familiar, gone.
It doesn’t wait for perfect soil.
It grows anyway.
It becomes proof, and true that new life can rise out of a place where everything once burned so bright that hope was brought to question.
It is that very truth which calls us to do what we do.
We walk into the aftermath of eruptions—
The disasters carried in other people’s bodies,
their hearts, their stories.
We don’t rush to fill the silence.
We don’t force the healing.
We stand beside it,
steady hands, open hearts,
trusting that light can find its way in.
Grace taught me how sacred this work is.
How healing can be a whisper,
a flicker,
a single breath after years of holding it in.
–
We see it all the time don’t we?
the slow unfurling,
the first green leaf through black rock.
We are light workers.
We don’t create the bloom.
But we tend the ground,
we hold the hope,
we listen for the quiet leading
that guides us back again and again.
This work is hard.
And holy.
And it matters.
Here, among teammates who care fiercely,
among lives slowly turning toward the sun,
I am grateful—
to witness,
to walk beside,
to see beauty bloom from ashes.