The Difficulty of Empathy

Jackie’s smile could burn off two full days of

Dense fog and heavy clouds in anyone’s soul

And so each day she rose to pour

Sunbeams into the mid-centers of receptive hearts

But on this day

And for the past fortnight

All she could think and

All she could say

Was this — “Welcome to another fucking day.”

It took (and it was) the bitterest pill

that buckled her knees,

crushed her heart and

razed her soul

And I just want her someway to know

how much everyone here loves her so

We feel her pain but only in very low dosage

and wish we could somehow absorb more

In this life, we learn to love before

we learn to know

the inevitability of wrenching loss

If this, then, is all there is, it is, indeed,

a most malicious hoax

All this beauty all around

overloads perception and inspires awe

But for what ———

For death? For loss?

Simply can’t be so

There must be a better ending

But how to relieve the weight of Jackie’s pain?

Here and now. How to lessen it so?

No one seems to know