The quiet prayer in my heart
continued on
no matter how many times I seemed
to forget to listen.
It was there in the quiet moments
when I dared to gather up all
of the confusion and anxieties
and frustration and ongoing traumas
playing out all around me.
It was there in the aha moments
when I became quiet enough to remember
all I had forgotten to gather up —
all the little bits of hope and the pure
miraculous way they still existed
after everything.
It was there when I remembered
just one small, sweet memory
of the journey —
a time when I seemed to be
completely alone but realized I was not.
In a sea of traumatic memories
and the long list of things lost,
what stood out, if I looked
and listened a little deeper,
was tenderness.