In Difficult Times

 

facebook image from Walk for Peace

Where to find poetry in difficult times?

It's in a line of monks in orange robes,

walking across America for peace and compassion:

their quiet hearts, their smiles, their fingers
raised in blessing.

It's in the sunrise rising up over Rosie Bay,

in the crows strutting along the beach,

turning over shells, looking for their breakfast.

It's in the daily news, horrifying, heartbreaking,

violent attacks on innocent civilians, and it's in

the voices of those there to witness, asking

"what's your name? who can I call?"

We turn from scenes we never dreamed we'd see

on the streets of North America,
an angry, ugly boil that has festered
and broken open.
We walk, like the monks,

to find some peace, and there she is -

a fox, where there has never been a fox before -

peering from the thicket - not alarmed, not running off -

just looking, as if to ponder what manner

of beast we humans are, to make so much noise

and clamour and distress on lands

meant for only peace and plenty.

The fox sighting was by a friend, not me. But she sent me the photo and I put her sweet face into this poem.