I thought I could fix it.
Not with a hammer and glue,
but with listening. With loving.
With holding the wounded
in my arms.
I thought I could make
it all better, I mean all of it,
you know, the way a mother
kneels before her child
and kisses his thumb
and miraculously the hurt is gone.
I thought I could make myself
bigger than the world’s problems,
as if with devotion and will
and practice, I could touch
infinity, embody enormity,
step over the inconvenience
of pain.
But came muck. Came tears.
Came anger and shrill and short.
Came small and weak
and tired. Came shame.
Came embarrassment I ever thought
I could be big. Came the surprising
pleasure of muck, the way
I can paint it on my face in wide stripes.
Came the gift of exhaustion.
Only then when I stopped
trying to carry the world, only then
did I notice how generously,
all along, the world
has been holding me,
has been holding us all.