How do we make sense of all that is happening in the world? From our own painful narratives, to the challenges within the circle of our beloveds, to all that is happening in the wider spheres around us such times of fires, floods, shootings, and acts of madmen. May we also take the time to appreciate the beautiful, to pause and wonder, to take that extra breath.
I offer this poem as an invitation to do something beautiful ~ and help create the world we want to live in:
Good Bones
BY MAGGIE SMITH
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
