Week 21 (August 9-15)
By: HEART Response Team on a summer night on Zoom
It’s time to make some summertime magic.
Creep outside to welcome the fireflies (or is it lightning bugs?),
leave your phone inside,
take off your shoes,
feel the moist grass between your toes,
look up.
Let your eyes adjust to the nothingness of something,
the flicker into constellation.
Notice gradually that instead of seeing one star…
there is a cluster,
no wait, a constellation (or is it a shooting star?)
They are socially distant
yet seem to get closer
as the roar of our ever important to-do list gets farther away.
The quieter we are,
the more we traverse in the darkness …
the brighter the stars become.
Until gradually, it seems that the stars
are forming some sort of inexorable community,
an unbreakable connection that refuses to let any star be alone,
but instead envelops the one lost in the void.
Feel the grass between your toes again …
This time… look in…
Who is in the void,
the COVID void,
where alone has become lonely?
Now, watch in the day ahead where your feet take you,
choosing to envelop the one lost in the COVID void.
Reach out.
Let the stars show us how to cluster together,
distant but not divided.
To community- illuminate what was too faint to see alone.
And … don’t forget,
the great summer magic of lightning bugs (or is it fireflies?)