Heaping

The change,
a sweeping tide -
again.

Yet, how much has changed -
from hope to fear,
from promise to frustration. By "change" today we mean "for me" and "mine" and "enough of the common good."

I came home to a house
full of heat.
On the stove, the lime green
dutch oven - the same
we received from the generous excess of family heritage -
held the meal
my beautiful wife had prepared -
a simmering stew
of wild rice,
and kale,
carrots,
and baby butternut.
The heaping abundance spilled its aroma through our airy home.

All day my mind was tossed -
toppled by the news and the agitation,
the talk of loss, the pessimism,
the angry smoldering of wanting,
the fuming of rights lost and selfishness encroached upon,
"Don't tread on me" -

the cramped calendars that have no room
for community,
for home,
for garden,
for neighbor.

We are poor. Poorer than we care
to face, poorer
than our ancestors
could dare fear,
even as they stood upon dirt
floors
and watched their crops
blow into dust.

For our poverty is our aloneness,
our isolation,
our privacy,
our islands of plasma screens and
rights and money.

I, though, am rich. Rich for the woman I have wed.
Rich for the food that has grown
on my land.
Rich for the boy who stayed
awake to give me a kiss.

Are we that poor off?

No. Only in what counts.
Only in goodwill,
in kindness,
in civility
and
hope
and faith
and love.