Sometimes it’s hard to pick a poem I think will offer some solace. Right now, the world seems so broken. I’m not sure this does the trick, but there is much we can’t do anything about, and some we can. Balancing those is key to remaining sane. I hope this poem helps.
Whatever It Is
I took some stones
from the overgrown fireplace
not too far from the maples
my father planted
that have outlived the house.
I have the tiny diamond
Aunt Barbara got from the man
she never spoke about
in my presence; today
only three people in the world
have any memory of her.
Here’s a diary entry I made
as a teenager: “Cicero says
one of the ‘six mistakes of man’
is to worry about things that
cannot be changed or corrected.”
The stones are in the basement.
The diamond’s in the vault.
Since I live in the country,
every spring I give a handful
of my hair clippings to the birds,
tie it in a bunch near a feeder
and let them pick at it to weave
into their nests, and perhaps into
their songs, these little
descendants of dinosaurs who
sing and sing and we smile at them
because we think their song says
“nothing to worry about,
nothing to worry about.”
I love this poem.
Me, too!