Observations and Insights on the Nature of Things
This monthly column features brief essays, poems, poetic micro essays and photography by
Eve West Bessier, Poet Laureate Emerita of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico.
Look for a new post every first Friday.
The Sunday Brunch column is on hiatus, making room for The View From Here.
Wishing all of you a healthy and abundant 2025! Happy New Year!
The Reach of Love
Let love show you its reach.
– Stewart S. Warren
How deeply does love reach?
Does it turn into heat
and reach into a frozen heart,
thawing all that threatens
to break as ice will break,
turning all into that which flows
as water will flow?
Does it turn into music
and reach the deafened ear,
reminding it to listen
when listening is difficult,
and rendering the reality
of a new harmony?
Does it turn into understanding
and reach into fallible prejudice,
showing the similar outweighs
the unknown different,
bringing the realization
of ultimate kinship
attested to by evolution?
Does it turn into sand
so that outmoded structures
can collapse, hardened hierarchies
crumble in the face of new faces,
those of women, peoples of color
and youth with vibrant destinies?
Does it turn into wind
so that resistance is made futile,
and acquiescence is liberty
to be authentically real,
genuinely vulnerable,
able to change
and grow perpetually?
Does it turn into light
and reach beyond
the closed doors of a mind,
opening darkened corners
of thought to alternative vistas
that clear all stagnant pools
of stubborn, self-centered angst?
Does it turn into a promise
that weaves its probability
of freedom through every fear,
every act of violence,
every shout of anger,
and softens every pharaoh’s heart
into a potential for humility?
Does it reach deeply enough to
touch us with our own divinity?
Does it reach deeply enough
to heal us with our own
highest consciousness?
Does it reach deeply enough
to create of us an enlightened
race of humans who choose
to live as one species,
one family, one diverse
yet united tribe?
Love reaches
as far as each of us
reaches for love.
Photo Credit: The Eagle Trees, Eve West Bessier, Copyright 2021
