All That Remains
Dedicated to Ursula Le Guin,
a great and spiritual writer.
When all cruelty has been done
to the homeless, the weak, and prisoners
being bused to their deaths,
when every vulgar display of power
has exhausted itself in fury,
like a cyclone, chasing itself to destroy
all that it comes upon,
it distills all of that which remains.
When all that we value has been crushed
and burned: our families, our friends,
our country, and any pretense of autonomy
and the scraps of dignity we have
long since surrendered
to save the furniture of survival
in the ships, now wrecked, of our lives,
kindness is all that remains.
All that remains is a couch
upon which to surf, keeping the rain
off our head by the kindness of others,
the working together for food
and some semblance of safety.
All that remains is to huddle together
in the cold, for warmth, with the weakest
held close in the centre, to protect them.
All that remains is a mumbled greeting,
an ancient blessing, or a hug,
for a rank stranger found
in the perfect desolation.
All that remains are the fruits of decency,
the deep roots of civilisation,
sharing that last half of a sandwich
with a starving stranger
in whose eyes we see our own,
and realise, with an overwhelming desperation,
and a hope that absolutely refuses to die,
that kindness is all that remains.
