We are
Changes comes in swift punches & the kids, well, the kids are still learning how to swivel & duck & exhale. I heard ‘We are the world’ on the radio this morning & I remembered watching the crowd of singers wailing it live in an effort to raise money for starving kids in Africa. I thought: kids are still staring in Africa. Micheal Jackson is dead. I thought: we are the world. We are the children & few of us know how to pivot with any kind of grace or confidence. The body of protections changes too. Sometimes it fails. We all flail. Trip. Land hard on our knees. Look at our hands & wonder where the hell our gloves are. I’m in the ropes, tangled. My palms are as naked as my fear. Change is winning & I don’t want to fight. But we are the world. We are the children. The world is different & the world is the same. The kids, well, the kids are masked miracles hopping now, their big eyes looking up at us to show them how even when we don’t know how.
Feeling fear today. It’s in my belly and pulling inward. The sun is warming the earth and air. Soon I’ll go outside in the yard. Work on my novel. I hope the warmth melts the fear down to seed.
Here are some poems about fear and anxiety because knowing that others feel fear too and that they write poetry about it…well, it helps. CLICK HERE FOR POEMS ABOUT FEAR.
NPM: Virtual Book Launch for Bruce Meyer’s tonight!
Bruce Meyer’s newest collection of poetry, Grace of Falling Stars, launches this evening. The book was published in the University of Windsor’s Editing & Publishing Practicum.
Here is the link to the Facebook event page. All zoom info is available on the link. Congratulations Bruce & team!
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 