poetry wednesday : it takes all your muscle to keep your own life upright

January 27, 2010 in Uncategorized

no one expects you to save the world

The headlines are begging for your help. Thousands needing homes, food.
But here, your own children, like inexpert stilt-walkers, flirt too often
with obstacles in the street. It’s no wonder you keep eyes glued
to them. The demands of love, or a job, the hard winter reining you in –
it takes all your muscle to keep your own life upright. And though you know
what you have is fortune compared to the great rift that earthquake left,
and the aftershocks continuing to destroy so much, somehow
that same fortune paralyzes, obstructs you with a heavy, gloomy guilt.
But no one expects you to save the world, no matter what you plan.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is to love everything we can.

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

3 comments to " poetry wednesday : it takes all your muscle to keep your own life upright "


e.beck

January 27, 2010 AT 9:41AM

i adore this … i printed it out and posted it by my kitchen sink…. thank you ….

Hiro Boga

February 10, 2010 AT 9:21AM

Lovely, Patti, thank you!

Steve Strother

September 6, 2011 AT 6:54PM

This is awesome Patti! It is so easy to get wrapped up in everything that is happening in the world and to feel paralyzed when it comes to being able to do anything about it – we all only have so much money to give and as you say we each have our own individual concerns as well. You offer the best solution possible in the last sentence and I plan to remember this and put it into practice – “Sometimes the best thing we can do is to love everything we can.”