a poem for the help brazil comm

salable_mystic won me for a poem to help brazil deal with the terrible floods.    for a prompt, she sent me this picture:


http://www.gatetonowhere.de/gallery/data/media/3/sailing_the_desert1024x768.jpg


Compassion

Sometimes,

trying to connect with someone on the internet

is like setting sail on an ocean of sand:

There's just no purchase.

 

Each day brings one more story of devastation -

fires and floods, tyrants and bullies and charlatans.

I sit here with my tea, trying and failing to imagine

a life lived in such conditions.

 

Send money?  Sure.  Write a poem, why not?

Play a fannish game, post something on your LJ.

Pause and consider a biblical verse: "Many waters

cannot quench love, for love is stronger than death."

 

Is it stronger, for those who died, just now, in Brazil?

Is it stronger, for those who, bereft, remain?

I don't know. And yet, what else is there but to try.  

To climb whatever mast there is, set sail upon this garrulous sand,

weep and pray and cheer each other on

in this mad but curiously blessed endeavor.

 

We check each other, take example and give it in turn.

Do our best to live the ethical life, even when

we're tasked with such a remote connection.

Try to live up to what might, some day, feel real:

to know the world as one, to feel each others' skin and fire. 

To breathe that one breath that sustains us all

in longing, in witness, in passion, and in dream.