I am torn between two topics today,
how to encase the eternity of morning, or a diatribe
on those who would dance on yesterday’s ashes and broken glass

But perhaps they are one and the same,
a duality of wonder and hate,
the absence of the other
in the other

the promise of life
the negation of promise

celebration that there is mourning
disconsolation over inhumanity

the blurring of the outline of being
human

Me? I still breathe in the sun, the early breeze,
and cry over birdsong that lilts from the trees,
I rejoice in the infinite shades of greens
that God has bestowed on my eyes,
the blues on my ears,
salt on my tongue,
warmth upon skin

…and I will lie down in heady fields of lavender
when I die, my face to the sky, tickled orange by tiny ladybugs,
rather than be consumed by flame

Chagall 2020