A picture is worth a thousand words
or is a word worth a thousand pictures?
Think of strong, not as in muscular but
as in a coffee: black, bitter like a last goodbye
the kind that wakes you up with a gut punch
as in a tall, wide giant of a redwood
a beast of survival, home to more secrets to immortality
than all of humanity’s magic tricks together
as in a man, gray-haired and blue-veined
holding his partner’s hand of fifty years, counting breaths not seconds
as in an ant — lifting twenty times its weight
never questioning the size of its load, only the purpose of the carrying
as in the perfume your mother wore: sandalwood/vanilla
a single whiff and she appears amongst a million others
as real as the longing you hold in your hands
as in the human heart, the only muscle that never stops
never stops lov-ing, lov-ing, lov-ing, lov-ing, lov-ing
Read Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s poem here: Quiet not as in Quiet but
P.S. You might have guessed by now how much I love p.s.ing, so bear with me.
The world is a mess, to put it lightly. The past weeks have been especially hard to deal with on a day-to-day basis. It can all be too much when an entire world (quite literally speaking) of suffering is so easily accessible at any moment in the palm of our hands.
The process of reanimating the spirit is a slow one. I think this might be the case for many people. Today I decided to post this poem I wrote a while back, because despite the horrific, depressing weak nature of humanity, I still believe there is also a lot of strength and goodness. I need to believe it, otherwise what are we even doing here?
Ultimately, the answer to most of humanity’s woes is exactly one: love.
Love for nature. Love for animals. Love for ourselves. Love for our fellow humans.
Today I read this wonderful post by
and by the end of it, I had tears in my eyes. I’ll leave you with a quote here, and urge you to hug your loved ones extra tight today.When I think about what it means to be enough, what it means to be plenty, I think about sitting with my foster grandson Z (who also has Covid) this afternoon, helping him put together his floor puzzle of the solar system, and how he pointed at Earth and said, “That’s Mars!”
And I said, “Oh, this red one, that’s Mars, Z. And this one here, this beautiful blue and green one? That’s Earth. That’s where we live. Earth is our home.”
Z pondered, then said with great solemnity, “My house is on Earth!” He pointed to the planet that he, with great effort, had made whole by fitting together pieces of cardboard, one slow experiment at a time. “And your house is on Earth, too, Nana,” he said, brown eyes shining. “Our houses are on Earth together. Yours and mine.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Together on Earth. Isn’t it a beautiful planet?”
Yes, yes it is <3
I love this poem, Elisa, and how it flips our ideas of what “strong” is. Beautiful post. ❤️