This too will pass

Not just what you are struggling with today,
The tired attempts to push away the many things you fear.
Not just what you will be challenged by tomorrow,
The tight-fisted holding on to all that you fear to lose.
But all of the things you cherish, even their memories.
The way it feels when a soft breeze kisses your cheeks.
The startling tipping point of winter to spring when
The invisible lushness bursts out in a symphony of new birth.
The way the shell of your self-protecting heart breaks
Into a hundred pieces when she takes you in her arms.
When you recall the fragile bird of his tiny hand in yours.
Looking at the site of that tangled mess that somehow healed.
The old wreckage visible but clothed in redemptive new growth,
teeming with things that had never grown there before.

This too will pass.

So why rush through anything? Why hurry with closed
Hands and heart through this moment? Even if it’s hard.
Even if you don’t like it. Why distract yourself with
Nonsense when you know you will have to say goodbye
To everything and everyone you ever loved?