Poetry does not exist within me today. It has been kicked to the back, pinned down by too, too many wounds, beaten and thrashed into a retreat of survivalist discretion.
My heart is an acrobat, flip-flopping moment by moment, from anger to joy, admiration to revulsion, breaking open and healing up, as the world pinballs from crisis to crisis.
I am out of patience, with so many things: with the insecurity of the powerful, with those who only know how to rise by standing atop the bodies of others, with those who decry anything good because it is not perfect.
My brain bounces between gratitude and guilt over what I have when others struggle just to survive, and it seethes—not with envy, but with outrage—at those who have more than nations but for whom even that is not enough.
I am at a loss to understand how, with intellect enough to see planets circling the motes of distant stars, we cannot see the dangers in our own backyard, how we allow ourselves to be consumed by manufactured fears than respond to actual, physical, and undeniable threats. I don’t know how we can be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time.
We are still too close to the savannah that birthed us, seeing dangers beyond the light of our fires, the mouth of our caves, still viewing the world as a zero-sum game where, if you get more, that must mean I have less. We still find it so much easier to hate and fear than to love and support, are still so eager to let the sins of the past continue rather than to change one iota of our imagined realities.
I am spent, wrung out, despairing of the human race, all while sitting here in front of my laptop, in my heated home, with its running water, and its fridge full of food.
By all accounts and predictions, this will be a difficult weekend for the world, a difficult few days in a difficult season in a difficult year in a difficult decade that has only just begun.
I suspect I’m not alone in this. But from that suspicion comes a shred of hope.
I do not have all the answers, and even if I did, the world would not listen any more than it has in the past. However, I can do something small, something that might lift the spirits of one person, maybe two. I can acknowledge your anguish along with my own. I can find the person I love most and hold them for a minute longer than normal. I can help a friend or a stranger, without thought of recompense or thanks, just because it will make their day the tiniest bit brighter. I can encourage others to do something similar. I can encourage us all to do better.
So, let’s do better, eh?
Can’t hurt to try.
I was nodding along with each word as I feel the same. You’ve managed some beautiful writing here to describe the chaos and hard we are all living through in various degrees. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes, just knowing we’re not alone in our experience is a balm. Thanks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’ve just described my own condition perfectly! Yes, it does hurt, sometimes deeply. I do see it from my own front door, everything you have just described and the frustration that my words or actions would be impotent at best in as much as even a temporary solution… I share in your sadness brother. Mike
I share in your
LikeLiked by 1 person
Then let’s decide to enjoy something today, anything—a view, an old song we like, a particularly good piece of cheese, a favorite aroma—something that we select for the express purpose of enjoying it. Let’s make a bright spot in a dark day.
LikeLike