OH! STAND TOGETHER! THE GREATEST CONSENSUS IS TO LOVE

OH! STAND TOGETHER! THE GREATEST CONSENSUS IS TO LOVE I think of O’Toole and Mandela the amazing roles they played with their very lives here in our planetary drama as if I am watching Loren Eiseley’s “The Judgement of the Birds” —their choosing love and singing together, even in the face of darkness—I ask them to stand with puny little me now, as I try to overcome my own surprising dread of Christmas gathering and pageantry this year, trying to overcome grief and, yes, transform mourning, so as not to shade the light from those I love so much. I think of “writing my way home” I think of “poetry therapy” I think of “saved by a poem” I think of the words of Chekhov: “We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.” --Barbara Smith Stoff December 16, 20