Gathering Light.

Background of this poem:

I woke up today with my name on a list I once only dreamed of. The 2025 Creative Future Writers Awards. Shortlisted for my poem "Bad Dates, Dead Monkeys". It feels both surreal and grounding, like stepping into a light I did not know was waiting for me. Writing has been my quiet prayer, my small rebellion, my way of making sense of the world. To be seen in this way reminds me that stories matter, voices matter, hope matters. I will keep writing, keep reaching, because this is only the beginning and I am deeply thankful.

Hence, I wrote this to celebrate this win:

The field is wide with waiting,

and hands know what to do.

They bend to the stalks,

to the fruit,

to the sudden gleam of something worth saving.

A harvest is never just wheat or apples,

it is every step that brought you here,

the patience of seasons,

the slow work of roots,

the quiet faith that seeds become.

So you gather not only grain,

but the words that rose like green shoots

from the soil of your thought,

moments pressed into sentences,

memories strung into story.

Now the basket overflows.

Your name called,

shortlisted among others,

is itself a gathering,

a sign that what you tended in secret

has been seen in the light.

Keep this moment,

place it beside the others

like photographs in a well-thumbed album.

Each one says:

"you have gathered,

you have kept,

and you have given back to the world

a harvest of your own."