Compassion

Compassion When you are in extremis and are grieving in despair, When loneliness is palpable and more than bones can bear, When nothingness pulls up his hood and veils his cryptic face, Like priest in a confessional who cannot give of grace, Then let your mind reach out above the barrenness of ages To find, not in this wilderness, the poets and the sages Who say: 'We too have suffered in this hell but left a special token Of music, painting, written things or things of great emotion To tell you, from the past, on high, that you are not alone, That we have wondrous gifts to show, which can for grief atone, That all the tumult on the page and all the torn out pages, Are only your great drama played upon ten thousand stages And we have come, in brotherhood, to make a great amends, To hold you up, to share your cause and be eternal friends, So monsters who make meaningless the passing of the night Will all submit to loveliness when comes first ray of light.

Carl Estrin