Walking across Virginia, Buddhist monks
make their way closer to D.C., months
after leaving their Texas home,

buoyed by love, tended by strangers
at every stop. And somehow that, for me,
quells the awful—at least for a bit.

I can’t say how following the journey
of men on foot, silently moving in the name
of peace helps, but it does. Somehow.

It is in the somehow that I live lately.
It is in the somehow where, come to
think of it, I have always lived.

Somehow I can rise again, even on
another foggy morning in what seems
like an endless winter of fog,

and I can feed the huge black kitty
in my house who, after I inherited him
a year ago, has decided that I am his,

as well as Hercules, the neighbor feline,
who appears mornings on my porch,
as if he does not get fed at home.

I can relate. “It’s always more fun
to eat out, dude,” I tell him as he
dives into the pâté du jour.

It’s in the somehow that we do
the smallest things for others, and,
of course, in that, for ourselves.

Somehow, even on another gray
Saturday morning, I can gather up
bowls and snacks, as I’ve done

thousands of times. I can unplug
the laptop and sheath it in its soft
sleeve imprinted with typewriter keys.

I can make copies of the prompt,
retrieve keys to the loft, and drive
to the place where writers arrive,

where, around a rectangle of long
white tables, they spill words onto pages,
which do not clatter, but land softly

under pens, under typing fingers.
And when I ask, “Who wants to read?”
someone always speaks up.

And somehow, in the gentle voices
burbling into our thirsty ears,
we perk up like cats waiting

to be fed, eager for the kind of
sustenance we too often forget
that we need.

•••

For the Team Haag writers who gather in the loft and online to
write their art out with me. I continue to be grateful for your
companionship and the community over many years.