Why the wait?

Meditations on waiting... and growth

Photo by Grant Charsley on Unsplash

I noticed it forming just the other day— 
barely a half-inch poke in the air

right where I thought 
the buds were all but exhausted. 

After months of stillness though, that fiddle 
leaf fig finally picked up his bow 

and began to play. And in the music,
a miniature hand unfolded and spread 

with another close behind as they both 
began scouring the sky. 

Each new dawn, 
as the leaves grew into themselves, 

questions grew alongside in me— 
Where have you been all these long months? 

Were you just shy, 
waiting for bud-bursting courage to swell?

Perhaps bashful to reveal some new 
tenderness under my watchful eye? 

Or maybe it was near-contentment. Happy 
enough with the music you had already 

made that more didn't seem necessary
until it was. 

But why now? 
And how did you know it was now? 

And was the waiting part 
part of the growing part? 

Written May 30 2024; Edited June 30 2026

I love a good conversation partner and my fiddle leaf fig did not disappoint. I posted an earlier draft of this poem in March 2025 and it was written about a year before that as I was processing some recent big-life changes and trying to come to terms with the time it takes for life to unfold. I’m not quite sure why I was drawn to revisit (and edit) this poem this week, but perhaps it is because I’ve been watching a new bud swell ever so slowly and it is bringing to my awareness that familiar feeling of impatience (and not just with my plant!)

Regardless the reason, I’m left with the question “And was the waiting part // part of the growing part?” And the question feels like an answer to return to.

PS. Thanks to my Substack poetry community (especially fellow members of the The Messy Writers Club) for giving me the gift of immersion in so much well-crafted poetry over the last year. It has been learning alongside you all that I have been able to return to what I remembered as a polished poem and sense where it wanted to change and tighten even as it continues to unfold.