Having loved enough and lost enough,
No Longer trying to make sense of the pain
but trying to be a soft and sturdy home
to which real things land.
These are the irritations
So we can talk for awhile
the way rocks listen to the sea.
And we can churn at all that goes wrong
but then we must lay every living seed.
And yes, on nights like tonight
I too feel alone. But seldom do I
to see that it’s door into the endless breath
It seems as though the purpose of suffering is to exhaust us of our differences, and the purpose of love is to awaken us to how we are at heart the same. And every life, every generation, and the purpose of age takes its turn at pushing each other away, only to be loved and worn back to the one tribe we all belong. This seems even more relevant in our post-election country. For there is no they. We are they. We are each other. This poem speaks to the unity that always waits below our righteousness and insistence that we know the way. So, yes, we can talk, but ultimately, we make no ground until we listen: to each other, and to the current of humanity from which we rise and return. We only have one turn at being here together, before we pass what we’ve done or not done on to the next generation, I pray we can listen to what love and suffering open us to, so we can drink from that well and build a better world.