" I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say
thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey
when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the
driver in the red pick up truck to let us pass. We have
so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these
brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here
have my seat," "Go ahead --you first." "I like your hat."
-Denusha Lameris
No comments:
Post a Comment