I wake many mornings to what seems like an endless rain of bad news. I find myself often feeling sad, frightened, or enraged. I am very concerned about the direction our country and this world seem to be headed.
And each day I turn off the news and ask, “What is mine to do?”
The answer that keeps coming back to me is to be kind, be curious, be courageous, be clear, be compassionate and look for and create beauty. To keep telling the stories that must be told.
In all the circumstances of my life I have always turned to words to help me make sense of the senseless. Words will not save us but they can guide me forward another day or through a too long night.
This is a recent attempt:
“Upon Hearing the Latest Body Count from Gaza”
News lies shattered
around my chair and
runs down our walls.
Cries of
babies in Gaza
follow me from
room to room,
in my sleep, on
my walk.
“What can I do?”
I reach for
a humble pen
listen to a
mourning dove
watch a sunrise
a sunset.
Struggle to find
Words to see
me through.
Words for
Future generations
who will ask
how did they
let this happen.
Why didn’t
They run
Screaming through the
Streets with their
Hair on-fire until it
stopped?
I’m Dan Kenney and this is my perspective.
