First, you go inside
like taking your pulse
Put a finger to your heart
and ask:
What would you have me
know, today?
Then wait, patient
as the sky
for your first response.
They’ll come in layers,
the whispers of your heart
All you need to do is
be still.
“I am shy,” she might say.
“I’m scared, sleepy, full of fear.”
Keep listening.
Ask what’s fueling the fear.
“So many guns,
so much agony.
How does a person
with a heart
live in the world
today and not give up?”
Look close. Choose one.
The one gnawing at the surface,
crawling out of its hole
Take its hand, say hello,
welcome it into your lap.
“This one is a gun
pointed at the face
of a nine year old girl
in my city
She died in a driveby shooting
last week
My heart broke but there was
no time to mourn
Every day every hour
the atrocities continue
My inbox screams
for attention
All the ways the world
is falling apart
Who has time for one child?
One nine year old black girl
sitting in a car
waiting for her mother
when the crossfire
caught her life?”
Too much sorrow
for one heart to hold.
You hold it.
This doesn’t replace the phone calls,
the letters, the legislation,
but you know, studies prove
over and over—meditation
lowers the rate of violence
prayer changes the fabric
of the consciousness of the world
Your words become a living meditation
A talking stick of prayer
A guardian of light
to wrap around the body of the child
who was shot
at the corner drugstore
and will never be held
in her mother’s arms
again
If we take the time
to honor the losses
that trouble the waters
of our own hearts
If we who write
who dare to feel
who are vulnerable
and sensitive
to the point where it hurts
to watch the news
If we can’t metabolize the heartbreak we witness
and turn it into love
once again—
who will?
The child caught
by the bullet—
she was—is—loved.
The children ripped
from their parents’ arms
They were—are—loved.
Love is still the answer
But it’s so hard to see
when your heart is clouded with
sorrow, rage, terror
So keep coming to the page
as a way of cleansing your heart
This is how we’ll do our part
to heal our world
One poem
one sorrow
one heartbreak
at a time.
You choose the one calling to your heart
Write it down, so your words
become the alchemy that
turns it back to love
I’ll choose the one that calls to mine
What if this is the assignment we were given
before the world was born?
To come to this planet
at this moment of explosive violence
and be the warriors on the front line
To articulate every sorrow
one at a time
and turn it back
into love?
