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Spring, war, and poetry

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It’s been a while since I’ve written. Life with small children plus work has a way of filling most of the space—and then some.

As the season turns, the days carry a weight that keeps asking me to pause and reach out. We are living through so much upheaval—political, environmental, technological. The ground feels unstable in ways that are hard to hold. And yet here we are, going about life, showing up for one another.

Instead of a Dharma reflection this month, I’d like to share a new poem—an attempt to capture the texture of it all. For those who would like to connect more, I’ve included some events and programs below.

Let us keep tending the heart, doing our best to be humane in the face of so much that is inhumane.

With care, 
Oren

Before They Wake

I. 
Spring comes —
warm fragrance and light
ripple across the earth,
tender pink and white
opening

It is the first spring 
our daughter can walk.
She grips my finger
her blue cap tilted
each step a small surprise. 

Her bright mouth
forms my name.


II.
Before they wake, I sit
I breathe,
a train rolls through the dark
and enters the open window

each morning
before dawn
birdsong still arrives 

Last night, somewhere else
the sky split open again—
rockets screeching
a home unmade into stone and dust
a family
running toward nothing
they can name. 


III.
Morning after morning
the hills lift their green belly to the sun
ashes lift in the wind

I wake to my daughter breathing beside me
to coffee, dishes, and headlines
to the ground shifting

I make breakfast.
There are eggs, butter, oats
the table feels so solid.
My children make each other laugh.

I walk upstairs and sit at my desk.
Engines cross another darkness
Families bend over broken names
the beautiful mouths 
of those they love.

IV.
My son’s wide, hazel eyes
gaze up at me
waiting

His hair is so soft 
against my lips.

I hold one thread
of a cloth so vast
I will never see the end.
Every child, everywhere,
whose name I will never know
is here.

Rain arrives
touching everything.

I bend down
to feel the earth.

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Img by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash