Feeling helpless, even after volunteering, we invented a ritual. Like the smoke of burned prayers, or releasing the dead in canoes…

Sitting in the grass, with a view of water through trees, we look closely at each other, till the core love rises.

We look closely in front of us, starting with the grass that lines our thighs, out to the horizon and the afterglow.

We each hold a hundred dollar bill, for the wherewithal to enjoy, and to help.  Asking for more, to have impact at scale…

And so on.  Assume that we’re now peaceful, clear.  In front of us is tremendous light.  Behind us is the world.

Now what?  We can’t be there in the room with Israel and Hamas.  Can’t speak to Putin or imprison him. 

So we sit, trying to…send.  Two figures dwarfed even by the grass. 

We spread our arms.  I feel the blasts of the shofar pass through me and on to the hostages, to the people of Gaza. 

The view:  pale blue-silver of night water, sense of new oxygen, this bird lifting off:  I try to pass it on, in a cloud that will reach and cover Israel, cover Ukraine.  Reach the homeless. That this good can rain on them, that they feel the force of my intentions, and it somehow helps.

But they may also taste the bile of my frustration, a new cynicism, burning their lips, their skin. It’s all so entrenched…

Next to me, you’re sending love.  Your intentions amplified by the Shekhinah.  Fighting off images of horror, you send out wave after wave. 

Her eyes are still closed.  I look around.  Behind her the tiny lizards are standing up in the grass, basking.  The man who’d been lying on a bench is sitting up.  He’s smiling and crying, tapping his heart.  Good signs.  Promising…

Yes, to get from point A to point B.  From bed to bathroom to kitchen.

Yes, to pace while thinking or talking on the phone.  Drift to the window and look out, seeing nothing or something…

But more than that—to walk down the street, just walk for a few minutes, and the surprising distance that piles up behind!

Or go deep in the woods on a trail, around a bend, and get to that little valley, that little stream, and stare at moss and branches, the flow over rocks.

Soon I’ll rejoin all the regular people.  Connect again to rabbits and deer.  To everything that works properly—bacteria, supercomputers…

Wasn’t everyone grinding bone on bone and limping heavily?  You in your car at the light, isn’t your right leg damaged on the brake?  You in the crosswalk, aren’t you in pain?

I’ve never seen a limping deer, but they must exist, lying on their good side on flattened grass deep in the thicket.  It’s just getting worse.  The prognosis is not good…

I bonded with an arthritic dog, and that was a consolation.

But now I have things in common with the great walkers—the daredevils who cross whole countries, even continents, sometimes walking backwards!

I relate to the pilgrims, on the way to Compostela, through the Pyrenees and passing Tortosa.  The marchers, heroic protestors of past and present, nod to me.

I stayed connected through pain and limping and a walker and a urine bottle to my father, deceased.  Now as I do wooden laps, my self-image changes; I feel his exterior surrounding me.  I have gray hair, am wearing a yellow sweater; I’m unusually present to children I don’t have.  He/we put in our time, do our laps, get stronger, come back to ourselves.  And soon we’ll unveil a new suave simplicity—nothing to see here!

Standing still for a minute in the park, it’s like a Disney movie—the birds and squirrels gather round. 

What’s the difference between this bird, with his mohawk and orange beak, turning sideways to look at me with one bright eye, and the new leaves swaying behind him?

Plants and animals split off from an earlier life-form.  And on the sea floor there are vegetables with mouths.

The tulips, so upright and alive, like a teenage choir.  And this squirrel rising up on two legs to stare at me.

Look at those shoulders, arms and forearms, chest.  Even a navel!

No doubt we communicate creature to creature.  I try to beam him good will.  Can’t eat good will.  He scampers off, with a single curse, then leaps onto the trunk of a tree, powers up the spiral stair.  Our one encounter in this life…

And the tulip.  Little ice cliff of flower flesh. 

The birches are radiant in themselves.   Then amplified by sun from a clear sky, bouncing off them, off other trees, off people carrying their coats–all these waves colliding in a brilliant haze.

Bird with the orange beak, perched on a low wire fence.  I know this will be brief.  But it’s actually lasting a while, through many jerky frame by frame movements of your head… 

Branch of new leaves, you work your magic on me.  You’re not going anywhere.  I sink into you, smiling.  Pure life shining.  Something in me lets your swaying slow my heartbeat.