I appreciate words. I even luxuriate in their flow. I’m not a poet; but I find myself drawn to poetry. Some days, I cannot craft the perfect sentences to describe a point that I want to make or a feeling that I yearn to express. Other people’s words must help me.
Today needs poetry. I want to give my thanks to a handful of friends who touched my life yesterday, some near, some far. One bought me lunch and listened to my struggle to make sense of the heaviness in my chest. Another opened her home to me for a jagged hour. Two others sent virtual messages of hope and concern. Each knows what they did. I suspect they also know my keen need for their tenderness.
For them — for you — for myself, these words, so perfect for me today.
“The Lesson” by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1913)
My cot was down by a cypress grove,
And I sat by my window the whole night long,
And heard well up from the deep dark wood
A mocking–bird’s passionate song.
And I thought of myself so sad and lone,
And my life’s cold winter that knew no spring;
Of my mind so weary and sick and wild,
Of my heart too sad to sing.
But e’en as I listened the mock–bird’s song,
A thought stole into my saddened heart,
And I said, “I can cheer some other soul
By a carol’s simple art.”
For oft from the darkness of hearts and lives
Come songs that brim with joy and light,
As out of the gloom of the cypress grove
The mocking–bird sings at night.
So I sang a lay for a brother’s ear
In a strain to soothe his bleeding heart,
And he smiled at the sound of my voice and lyre,
Though mine was a feeble art.
But at his smile I smiled in turn,
And into my soul there came a ray:
In trying to soothe another’s woes
Mine own had passed away.
Truly Beautiful