Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘note to self’

Instead of Turning Off the News

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 29, 2024| 14 Comments »

Because it hurts to think about
the lost look in the boy’s eyes
as he holds out a thin silver pot for food,
because I ache when I think about the rubble
made of kitchen tables and bicycles,
hospitals, homes, high schools, hope,
because it is so painful to not know how
to help hundreds of thousands
of mothers and uncles and brothers
and daughters, I think about trees.
I think about how they grow.
How they need wind and the stress
of the world to build reaction wood
that helps them to lengthen
and strengthen into the bend.
Without such wood, the tree would break,
would fall. Oh self who would try to lock out the news,
oh self who feels the great weight of other’s pain,
of course you would want to look instead
for only what is beautiful, what is kind.
But let it all in. The fear. The worry. The anger.
The wishing. The compassion.
The longing to help. Of course
the big problems make you feel small.
But unless you can stand
in the place of yes to the world,
you can’t really stand at all.
The hunters in Eurasia would harvest
the compression wood created by stress
to make their bow staves—
that wood was stronger, more dense.
Oh self, you too need the right tools
to do the heart work you long to do.
What are you made of?
How strong are your roots?
Who will you be if you do not let it all in?

Read Full Post »