A reaction...

A sudden pull, from throat to gut, 
a heartache, dull, and thick
and quivering. 
It’s the spark of reactionary emotion
to an image
I did not want or expect to see. 
(Indeed, how can one expect to see such a thing, 
unless seeking it, 
unless visiting a source of information
where such a 
horrid sight
would be presented). 
I was not visiting such a source. 

Or so I thought. 

Now I realize, 
my source of common, normal, casual
information - 
my “social network” -
is no longer casual. 
Hasn’t been so,
for many years now, 
though I’m just now admitting 
the weight of this to myself. 
Too many links to 
too many sad things. 
An image I casually glimpsed tonight, just now - 
just cannot be unseen. 
Cannot be un-thought. 

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/09/03/437132793/photo-of-dead-3-year-old-syrian-refugee-breaks-hearts-around-the-world

I’ve seen many a horrific truth or scandal detailed deftly in digital telling. 
I’ve even similarly reacted, with that pull of dread and an instant wet eye.

But nothing, 
ever, 
made me reel
the way this image did tonight, just now - 

now that I have a child. 

I cannot see an image of a child,
drowned, 

now that I have a child. 

I cannot see this image and forget it, 

now that I have a child. 


A sweet young being, its short life curtailed, 
its sweet young body
awash on a beach. I cannot un-see this, I cannot un-think this. 
The heart which beats within me 
rips at its many-times-healed sutures, 
it swells with its overstated sensitivities and sends pumps of pained
breaths through the body which is 
me.
Hysteria. 
The brain which hovers in my skull
beams its confusions and 
lyric magic bandages 
of spiritualized ideas
of balance
light and dark
and la la la la la!
There is no 
explaining!
And no temperance,
in any atomic grain of instance, 
in any divided pixel of presence, 
in any damn dose of regurgitated perception. 
It’s hell. 
Plain hell on earth. 

Now that I have a child, 
I know,
because just the iota of thought
of seeing him (my child) 
in place of 
the Syrian child swallowed by the Mediterranean, 
shows me a glimpse
of hell on Earth. 

And I get to take my next breath in
and then exhale my next breath out, 
and get to stand and walk and eat,
and cuddle my baby
when he awakes…

These heartfelt moments of
appreciating the tiny things of life
are common enough, 
lovely and poignant and 
honest enough. 
And they make my life that much more rich…

And I, 
and those of the rich, full, rainbow tribes, 
what are we doing - 
how are we accountable? 
We’re missing something.
We’re gifting
our joy
to the ether, 
we’re pouring our love into 
the Earth…

and it’s still not enough. 
​
Hasn’t been enough. 

To see a drowned child, 
because he could never arrive 
at safe haven…

we haven’t done enough. 
​