Weight

 

I read that wild creatures now form

only two percent of the world's population.

Humans, factory cows and chickens

make up all the rest.

How does a human heart encompass

the weight of that? How do we compute
genocide occurring
across the sea - the brutality 

making us wonder how a human being

can allow himself to behave like that.

What fissure in the neurons occurs

to make such hatred, such
grotesque brutality,  even possible?

Keep the pain on the main road, 

my friend said, and travel with it.

Grief is like the covid vaccine,
she told us.

It innoculates us so we can

better withstand all that happens,

all that keeps happening, no respite,

even for the aged, whose hearts

have stretched like pulled elastic,

just this side of snapping.

Some days I can act like

my heart isn't breaking.

Some days I can't.

There are so many reasons

to treat each other with kindness.

We each carry something.

We never know the weight of

another person's load.

Inspired by  comments by Laurie Wagner of Wild Writing.