All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born;
all around us life is dying and life is being born.
The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work
in the darkness of the earth against a time when
there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit.
Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath
from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try
when all else has failed, the upward reach of life
when weariness closes in upon all endeavor.
This is the basis of hope in moments of despair,
the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint
and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence
when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash.
The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death —
this is the growing edge incarnate.
Look well to the growing edge!
—Howard Thurman
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