Hold On

The sky is all pink rimmed gray clouds
this morning before the rain,
a telephone wire black bird
silhouetted against it.
Baby bunnies play in the grass
and the green, the green!

As soon as I open my phone,
I will read today’s terrible news.
What fresh horror will it be today?
What inconceivable damage
caused by greed?
What cruelty against the least of us?
Even here on the home front,
there are the gnawing worries,
the private heartaches.

There is the beautiful
and there is the tragic.
Always.

I will say this-
I am trying, trying
to the best of my ability
and circumstances,
to choose balance,
to keep beauty in focus,
to move toward it.

Because more tragic
than tragedy
would be letting the tragic
completely block my ability
to see the gifts of beauty
that surround me.

We learn, somehow,
to live within this coexistence,
don’t we?
We adapt.
We hope against hope.
We love anyway.

We open the window
in the suffocating room
of tragedy
to let in air and light.

We understand
that the vastness of beauty
is made more dear
by its delicacy.

By Maria Brady-Smith
Photo by Mike Smith