Image Source: http://executivesecretary.com/empathy/

Hello friends, wherever in the beautiful World you are. I pray you are staying well and taking advantage of time with family.

As some of you know, April is National Poetry Month! I decided to celebrate by joining two poetry challenges – something I’m normally not capable of due to work responsibilities.

The host of the first (a NanPoWriMo Zoom meeting) is Nancy Lyneé Woo, author of the books Like a Girl: The Pre-Show!, Rampant, and Bearing the Juice of It All. I decided to start sharing some of what I write in that workshop with you, because it will be fresh and relevant.

Here’s my poem and free-write. My wish is that it will bring you something you needed, and also inspiration for your own writing.

What are you carrying?

I’m carrying pain for all the people who are trapped in quarantine with a mentally ill person who is anxious and angry. Or depressed and suicidal. Or completely catatonic. And pain for people who are mentally ill and suffering because being cooped up at home is hard on their psychological health. And worry for all the homeless, of whom many are struggling with mental issues. And pain for how many will die. They are ours. They belong to us. And yet we disown them, toss them away like so much rubbish. Forget them altogether.

I wish we could all live by the gospel of Sandra Cisneros, and adopt bums to live in the attic, and love each other, and treat each other like humans. And I’m thinking of the convict from Green Mile who captured my feelings so perfectly by saying, “That’s the way it is every day, all over the world…I’m tired…”

But I’d have to say that though it’s true I’m exhausted from feeling so much empathy, I’m not tired anymore in the sense that I want to die and escape the world – just want not to hurt so much for all those who need help. And now it occurs to me, maybe that would not be best. It is the deep empathy we feel for others that drives us to do something about their pain.