What happens when I read the news before meditation

I go to my cushion, I sit

with Iran Iraq, all shook up - 7.3, an inconvenient sanction,

with catastrophe to break its back.

I sit with red scarfed women, quiet as the dead -

with their broken city, broken body, broken song.

I sit with the ones who always will remember,

forgiving my amnesia, preserving us like a peat bog, tar pit.

I sit with my faucets of hot water and long showers,

my own safe place, a lifetime of golden yolk, delicious.

Under the same sky, I sit with ten thousand children

toting five-gallon buckets, minding minefields and mortars.

I sit with questions poking the soft soles of my feet.

when I walk too fast they pop open and swallow me.

I sit with dilemma, with a thready song, pretending

that my fingers can touch the grief of red scarfed women.

I sit in webs of hope, take notice of a pileated messenger,

hammering away for the little things that deliver us.

And when grace tips me on my head, I am
an ocean-dreaming puddle,  a puddle-dreaming spring.