Poem for October Fifth

Reach your heavy paws into space and love the world.

Follow the hunger and the longing.

Follow the insatiable urging

the heartbeat knocking

the clamour for goodness

the stubborn inclination

Pivoting its way back, always back, towards joy.

All these

are the things that made life begin in the first place, are they not?

And life did begin.

Despite the overwhelming odds

Despite all the evidence that demands we stay afraid.

Everything is a metaphor for everything else.

There are no rules, there are no pitfalls.

There are no more demons on the road ahead.

To live is to unlock a door that you alone possess and

What the world needs from us is the same as what it needs from everyone:

Be mighty, yet have mercy.

Be fierce and soft at the same time.

Be braver than permitted, and kinder than we are taught to be.

Free me

Free me

Free me into silence .

Quiet the voices that are scared and mediocre.

Quiet the sadness for a world I cannot save.

Make me bigger than I am and also smaller.

Become a citizen, aware of miracles.

Chase me down through the night all encased in your armor,

welcome me home with your soft hands.

May I climb into your skin, see through your eyes?

Will I be less alone then?

Will time passing be more bearable this way,

If I can inhabit you, everyone, the other?

Is that how we learn to live?

If I walk away, would you disappear?

Would I still exist if you did not?

What if everything is futile?

What if everything matters?

Sit in front of me, but watch yourself.

Give me your grace and your burden,

Return to me my willingness.

Quietly now,

Zoom in.

Hope is the dream that life is possible,

Despite our fear of what it means to be alive.

If I slow my ragged breath will your heartbeat slow too?

If I lay my head in your hands will my thoughts spill quietly out?

Tell me something, you say , and I reply that you matter.

You are scaffolding.

You are the ladder reaching.

You matter.

You are enough.

~ Alexis Fletcher