Everyday Compassion – Day 2 – Poetry Month

It’s true I have trouble with you,
With everyday compassion,
Because
It means forgiving the person
Who drops poop bags to the ground–
Listening between sarcastic comments for
Pain and fatigue. Everyday compassion the
Off-gassed namesake of
Life.

I’ll have to be
More than OK with rigid people–
Got to
See myself in them, to
Assume inflexibility
Springs from
Common awe,
Actions exacted and undignified and
So meaningless a life floats
Separated from all others.
And to this
Inconsequentiality, how I must
Practice
Crooning a lullaby.

Or not. To suffer the cause of
Everyday compassion, I see I
Must be plain
OK
With unenlightenment and even
Honor somehow
Guns in bedside tables
Gas guzzling Humvees
Pedophile neighbors
Terrorist teenagers and
Their suicide vests.

Everyday, my mouth clamors its
Judgments.
If I am good,
I am interrupted.
An omniscient wrong
Twinned with
Perpetuating rejection–

I am interrupted.

How do I love thee?
She asked before the
Murders came.
Let me count the ways,
The ways around and
Through and
under and
Addled and
Cleft.

Poetry