Poem

Courage

How many courageous people do you know?
What is courage after all?

To laugh when it feels like laughing,
To cry when it feels like crying,
To sing when it feels like singing,
To dance when it feels like dancing,
In the street, at work, in a hospital,
Wherever and whenever.

To say I love you first,
To say I love you without I love you in return,
To ask for help when in need,
To say I can’t when you can’t,
To say no when everything around says yes,
To be kind to someone unkind.

Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

Yes there is even death.

But,

They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet

The sky is no longer thick with fumes

But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

People are singing to each other

across the empty squares,

keeping their windows open

so that those who are alone

Pandemic

What if you thought of it

as the Jews consider the Sabbath—

the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.

Cease from buying and selling.

Give up, just for now,

on trying to make the world

different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those

to whom you commit your life.

Center down.

And when your body has become still,

reach out with your heart.

Know that we are connected

in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

Felt Sense Prayer

I am the pain in your head, the knot in your stomach, the unspoken grief in your smile.
I am your high blood sugar, your elevated blood pressure, your fear of challenge, your lack of trust.
I am your hot flashes, your cold hands and feet, your agitation and your fatigue.
I am your shortness of breath, your fragile low back, the cramp in your neck, the despair in your sigh.
I am the pressure on your heart, the pain down your arm, your bloated abdomen, your constant hunger.

Frontiers

On those difficult days, when a frontier looms,
decisions seem called for
and the armies of your mind muster
and set off on a headlong gallop
towards the horizon,

they make so much noise
that the heart's soft voice
is drowned out,
and kick up so much dust
that compassion's anchor loses purchase.

The faster the armies gallop,
the farther away the horizon seems,
the bumpier the path
and the cloudier the dusty air