Dissonance

While eating breakfast,
I watch two cardinals hop along the fence
in the bright, crisp sunshine.
A fuzzy brown rabbit
hunkers down in the tall grass to rest.

Meanwhile,
I listen to a radio story
about a caravan of families
fleeing violence and oppression
in search of a home
where their children
won’t be killed.

I don’t know how to reconcile
these scenes in my mind.
How do I hold the suffering of others
alongside the beauty of this world?

I don’t have any answers
and it leaves me
with an uncomfortable dissonance.

But it is a necessary discomfort.

The alternative is to shut them out
because I cannot bear their pain,
to build a wall
around my heart
where compassion can neither leave
nor enter.

By Maria Brady-Smith