Treat Each Other With Great Tenderness

A Pause in Our Song

Someone in deep grief rings a bell
in a field where no one can hear.
It makes the birds pause in their
song and the willows slouch a little
closer to the ground. She just keeps
ringing it until the ancient tone
draws her back into the world.

At the same time, someone who
has lost his purpose sits on a bench
underground, watching those like
him board and leave the subway.
He searches for his resolve as if he’s
lost his wallet. Despite his alarm, he
has a creeping sense that sitting on
this bench underground is a spot
of Heaven.

I understand them both. For I have
let the crack in my heart ring where
no one can hear. And I have found
peace in the center of being lost.

~ Mark Nepo ~
from The Half-Life of Angels, by Mark Nepo

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Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Isn’t Breaking

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star
would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons
equals the collective weight of every animal
on earth. Including the insects. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible
until I consider how it is to swallow grief—
just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed
a neutron star. How dense it is,
how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.
How difficult it is to move then.
How impossible to believe that anything
could lift that weight.

There are many reasons to treat each other
with great tenderness. One is
the sheer miracle that we are here together
on a planet surrounded by dying stars.
One is that we cannot see what
anyone else has swallowed.

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer ~
from Rosemerry’s website “A Hundred Falling Veils“

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Photo by Habranthus on Unsplash