Destiny Radiates | Summer 2025

ArtsCulture

Jul 17

“The Bloom is Coming”

Summer radiates differently around here. It shows up in sun-warmed shoulders, in the way folks start gathering without needing a reason on porch steps, sidewalks, parks and along the Sound. You hear it in the laughter that floats up with the gulls, in the music from a block away, in the clink of glass and the sizzle of something good on the grill. This is the season where we remember we belong to each other, to this land, to something older than concrete or clockwork.

Sarah A. Chavez’s Destiny Radiates is that reminder: that no matter what tries to dim us, we shine back. From the soil, from the stories, from the sun itself. And when we rise, we rise together. We radiate.

The trinity trills of white-crowned sparrows, black-capped

chickadees, and dark-eyed juncos sing me upright, my feet

lithe and hopping, mimicking the worm-rooting robins,

confident in the perennial rye.

Outside, the air no longer smells of frost, mist a recent memory,

visibility clear to the salty sound. Even the lazy cloud cover drifts,

revealing cerulean expanse, the sun’s growing heat bringing blood

to the surface of upturned cheeks, radiating warmth

across uncloistered shoulders, the rays loving liquid dripping

bronze reminding me that while color may lie dormant,

it cannot be disappeared. This visceral connection

is DNA encoded, cellular, microscopic and unceasing inheritance.

No matter neo capitalisms industrialized farms, overfished waters,

felling elder tree after elder tree under false claims of care,

building exorbitant housing, selling conveniences that court disease,

attempting to create assimilative lifestyles; they cannot eclipse

summer’s grandeur, can’t distance this ancestry, can’t stop

our rainbow shine, hands brown and black, yellow and pink,

stub-nailed and clawed. We harvest sage and rosemary,

lavender and lemon balm, yerba buena and berries

of various shaped nourishment

In the solstice, we emerge vibrant, unapologetic like irises lifting

our unfurling faces, like tawny lilies opening, opening, opening

to truths of abundance.

Abuela taught me to trust the rich brown soil, submerge my fingers

tenderly into its depth, foster seeds and irrigate a partnership, as we’ve done

as laborers, as rancheras, as ancient stewards in relationship

to the land. Before the whir of machine and metal teeth, medicine

was both action and leaf, knees coated damp in veneration.

In the cathedral of swaying madrones and red cedar, the wind teaches

quiet. To still our human voices is not an act of silencing,

but a lesson in palpable presence which cleaves through the noise

of someone else’s should, blocks out material trappings, invites the hum

and buzz of insects, the rhythmic lapping of waves. Our listening

is strength and bloom. Trust in the soil’s lead, the sun god’s wisdom

that reaches back centuries and looks 7 generations into the future.

Though their bodies have rejoined the earth, I see our elders'

hands, scarred and rough in my hand as I reach to cup

a budding rose, gently thumb the satin petal and know

this was always destiny.

destiny radiates 2025
By Sarah A. Chavez

destiny radiates | summer | 2025
Sarah A. Chavez, a California mestiza living in the PNW, is the author of the poetry collections like everything else we loved, (Porkbelly Press), Halfbreed Helene Navigates the Whole (Ravenna Press Triple Series), Hands That Break & Scar (Sundress Publications), and All Day, Talking (dancing girl press). Recent writing projects have received a 2025-2026 Tacoma Artists Initiative Award, as well as residencies at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, the Macondo Writers Workshop, and The Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow. Her in-process project, In the Face of Mourning was awarded a 2023 Scholarship & Research grant from the University of Washington Tacoma’s (UWT) School for Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Chavez teaches creative writing and Latinx/Chicanx-focused courses, facilitates community writing workshops in and around Tacoma, WA, and serves as the poetry coordinator for Best of the Net Anthology. Some of their writing can be found in Diode, Thimble Magazine, Painted Bride Quarterly, Cider Press Review, & The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review.rritories but fractures the human spirit in ways that echo across generations.