There Are Things That Keep Me Alive

There are things that keep me alive,
Things that keep me from losing all hope in humanity.
Sometimes it’s a work of art,
Sometimes it’s a musical composition,
Sometimes it’s a dance performance,
Sometimes it’s the brother or the sister who goes against the grain,
And becomes the conduit of Love and Compassion,
Freedom and Justice.

There are times when I want to give up.
Times when I wish to curse all of humanity,
For it’s wretchedness and endless appetite for exploitation,
For its indifference to the plight of the insignificant,
For its stubbornness and unwillingness to leave behind the drive towards mass extinction:
War, greed, putrid tendencies that take us all down,
And then I remember there are things that keep me alive.

Sometimes it’s the person who can’t be bought,
Sometimes it’s the person who inspires,
Sometimes it’s the poet,
Sometimes it’s the homeless person who sits in the pew of the church,
Sometimes it’s the Muslim woman,
Lighting a Candle
Before a statue of Mary the Mother of Christ;
Sometimes it’s the person who reflects the Light within,
Who refuses to suffocate the gift we’ve all been given,
As children made in the image and likeness
Of a Divinity almost forgotten.

There are days when I want to scream and give-up,
And be the God of the Hebrew prophets raining Biblical terror,
Upon the cruel and unjust of the world,
The corrupt who contaminate the rest,
And reinforce the illusion of power and wealth;
And then I remember there are things that keep me alive;
Sometimes it is sitting still,
In the presence of the Divine,
Sometimes it’s a hug from a friend,
Sometimes it’s the act of making LOVE to Meme,
And getting lost in the bliss…

There are things that keep me alive,
And then there is that moment of Epiphany:
What matters most,
Is what keeps me alive!

©Wilfredo Benitez
July 6, 2015