Narrow Beam
Our lives a flashlight’s
narrow beam—most
unseen out of range
Perhaps a gift,
this confined view
seeing only
what we can
Never-ending news
brings distant agony
up close leaves me
impotent, anxious
A hundred years ago
helping build a barn
or harvesting fields
easy to romanticize
but hard to live
crushed limb or worse
only straps to bite
grain alcohol
he takes your leg
I accept these
problematic times
—my times—
but live close in
remembering we’re
one not discrete
sharing breath
sharing all