Osmium

Blue-white brittleness
densifies the heart,
then heavy lies our thoughts and feelings.
We begin acting as strangers do.

For the old woman wandering alone
after the heavy door to her past is shut,
and the old man in the crowd wearing white whiskers,
slipping his heart in his pocket.

Tears swell in the eyes of not just the old.

The black-frocked goth horse-girl rides by.
She’s not immune to dreaming of what might be,
within a world whose sky can reflect a million hues of blue.

The boy drenched to the bone by tears,
who feels he’s in a world with
too many words in its head,
when all he needs to say and hear is “I love you.”

What do we do to brush away the pain before there
will be no place to sing and dance,
when there seems to be no cure
for the many kinds of sadness and all our deepest regrets?

The time is right for getting back to sharing loaves and fish,
bringing forth the doers, thinkers, praisers, and empathizers.

There’s not a moment to lose.