Do You Know Just How Loved (Amidst COVID-19)

As we approach May with no answers as to when we’ll return to working order amidst the pandemic, a new poem sprouts....

Do You Know Just How Loved

©2020 Karla Johnston, InnerConstellation.com

Eyes and hands of compassion

always roaming…always reaching out—

Remember Master Daowu, that Zen master who said, 

“It’s like adjusting a pillow in the night.”

Arriving at the surgery center during COVID,

balancing the mask,
elastic behind the ears, hearing aids,
long hair.

Dang it, forgot the hair tie!

Step out the car and feel something beneath my shoe

Lift my sole to discover—a hairband,
and, it matches my outfit, get out!

Smiling at this gift,
I wash it good, along with my hands,
and secure my locks in pure wonderment.

A few days later I head out into the wild,

no music, no earbuds, just a heart open to the signs—

I’m mountain biking on the down

and ride through a puddle,

turn back around

to look upon

a mud-hole-elongated-heart,

reflecting the sky

as if to say, 

“Don’t ever forget,
I love you.”

I smile at Creator’s sense of humor,

the intimate knowledge of my personal motto—
you got to learn to sling mud

to grow lotuses.

It seems a theme
COVID-19–

those hands, those eyes,

there’s so little

that I actually need.

Shocked Into Presence ~ COVID 19

Shocked Into Presence

COVID-19

April 9, 2020

©2020 Karla Johnston, InnerConstellation.com

It has taken three weeks

to bring myself to the page,

attempt this weak

expression of our strange new world.

Here in America predictions are—

numbers will peek Easter Sunday 

and hopefully then, the curve will flatten.

Worldwide cases: over 1.6 million

Deaths: 97,237

USA: 451,491

Deaths: 15,938

USA jobs lost: well over 16 million 

As we wait this out, 

quarantined and socially distanced.

I include the numbers in a search for perspective,

think back in history to the ancestors 

who perhaps like me felt entirely Incapable

of recording the depths, 

lives impacted,

So in mind-numb did not.

I know one True North—compassion:

health care providers, grocery clerks, 

businesses that have retooled production

for ventilators, hand sanitizer, PPE. 

When asked about the many eyes and hands of compassion, 

Master Daowu said, 

“It’s like reaching back in search of a pillow in the night.”

There are two parts of me, one who watches:

numbers climb, economy crash,

And another, Master Daowu, 

who reaches in the dark—

natural,

effortless,

innate,

fearless.