I consider radiance to be a state of illumination and purification that culminates from an intense process of refinement. I equate it to the spiritual beautification of one’s being, the way one observes, the manner in which one speaks, listens and engages with the world. To be in a state of radiance is to be in perpetual refinement. Our life experiences in their variations and uniformities, and our choices, whether to resist or endure, become the processes that make us radiant

I sometimes retreat into confusion. In these moments, I forget that I am merely human, a transient being. My own radiance—that inner light—is inevitably dimmed: sometimes by the state of the world, and other times by the storms within my own mind

Radiance is motherhood. Being a single mother has given me eyes that I would never have in any other timeline. I am grateful for the gift of life passed through my womb. Birthing is a form of knowing.

Radiance is the light reflected from our words pointing towards what matters most to us. There is a deep vulnerability involved in standing beneath this light or feeling charged with directing it. Every moment of delving into this and choosing to be seen, to be heard, brings us closer to creating a life for ourselves from our words.

i’ve watched leaves raining down from their mother tree,
yours was a droplet of salt on our wounds.

In a Nebraska grocery store, packets of corn yellow 
at me from the shelves and I’m back to the planting  
season, when the rains have appeased the land.

everything I am 
is wanting & needing/

every bone, every 
hollow, this image/

is a god fashion-made for you/

But you can see me there.
In the picture of the birds. 
In the church of avian beings. 
Small, colorful, and endangered.

he insists, we lost the civil war 
because i kept aiming at a god, only i could see
hiding behind a cloud.

how do i tell him that he’s my grandfather 
& i wasn’t born until 28 years after the war?

but if I knew one person in the world who could die
for others, it was you,
if anything on this table is bitter, it must be my coffee
stripped of milk,