Sad – A poem speaking to us of the constant turmoil in the world

By Ana Lisa de Jong —

Sad

There is something immensely sad
resounding in the depths,
and carrying on the airwaves.
That is finding a response in us.
The groaning of the earth
is felt by the sensitive.

We don’t know what we are listening for,
but we hear it.
We don’t know what is moving us,
but we register it.
Other’s tears we brush from our own cheeks.
Other’s wounds run fresh with our blood.

We are intrinsically connected.

While the waves jolt us,
and the earth appears even to expel us,
as if we were superfluous,
we are still rocked in unison.
The tide carries us in one direction.
We make landfall on a common shoreline.

One person’s healing becomes another’s hope.
One person’s hope is sowed as a seed
to grow in the heart of the other
until love takes root, and
sprouts as the tree that heals the nations
and the broken earth.

Yes, there is something immensely sad
resounding in the depths,
and carrying on the airwaves.
There is an ache, a worry at the edges of our thoughts,
that we might recognise what it is we fear.
And yet name the shapes we see in the dark.

But for light, we might indeed be lost.
But hand in hand we carry a torch each,
that from our hands will never be knocked.
Not while your tears are brushed
from my wet cheeks,
and my heart healed by your love.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
October 2017