Each Dawn a Surprise

oxalis blooming in a garden

From the dark place despair dropped me

may I rise up like oxalis

after the first autumn rain,

push through

wildfire ashes and

soaked cedar bark mulch

into this enticing

day-following-night world.

Let me sip sunlight

and feast on my own green,

unfold cloverleaves as if

the sun would return

tomorrow

and tomorrow

and tomorrow.

All winter long

buried,

I dream of rising up,

of becoming flowers

so yellow I am

joined to that light. 

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Mary Camille Thomas

Mary Camille Thomas is a native of Santa Cruz who is grateful to make her home on the California coast once more after living internationally and on the road. She studied comparative literature at UC Davis and received a master’s degree in library science from UCLA, which gave her a way to earn a living while making a life among books. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the Monk in the World Guest Post Series, Moving Force Journal, Presence, Porter Gulch Review, Second Wind, Sisters Singing, and The New Story, and she has completed a novel called What Lies Buried about a man reckoning with his family’s Nazi past.

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