May 9

I flee into the green
While it feels like everything
Else is crumbling. Yet Spring
Is still joyfully bursting into flower.

The news is awful,
The yard and fields and meadows
Abundant and alive. How can I
Possibly reconcile the two?

My poor divided heart, half broken
In jagged shards of despair,
Half aglow with pink petals
Drifting like warm snow.

I do what I can. Whatever that means:
A song, a march, a donation, a kindness.
Keep reminding myself that now, and now,
And now are the only moments.

Nature is waking up all around me,
Leaves fresh and limp as new butterfly wings,
Birds shouting from the trees, the earth
Blessedly uncaring and glorious. 

Photo by Anthea Lawrence