8616. FOR TEN THOUSAND THINGS I AM SORRY

FOR TEN THOUSAND 

THINGS I AM SORRY

Someone left their backpack on the trail.

How could that be? It makes me sad

that it's been left behind : if so, I'm sorry

for that person's loss. But more than

that it makes me worry what's going on?

It doesn't somehow seem right.

-

I get so sorry for ten thousand things;

now this is one. I'm sorry for the dead

owl I saw on this path. I'd never seen 

one before, and it broke my heart and

I thought they were larger too. I moved

it away and under some leaves in a

hand-dug trench I sorrowfully made.

I'm sorry for the sad guy in the 

candy-clutch cabin I stopped in for 

supplies and some coffee. He was 

playing his flute, like a bad Jethro Tull.

His eyes were wet, sad wet; not the

kind of happy wet like I saw on Robert

Plant at the Kennedy Center Honors,

with the Led Zeppelin guys. This was

different. I was sorry for his hurt.

-

I am sorry for Joyce Maynard and her loss.

I'm sorry for those miners who got trapped,

and who then thought they were saved, and

then who were dead again. That's all brutal

stuff, and I am sorry for ten thousand things.

Everything hurts, and makes it all worse.

Everything hurts, and makes it all worse.

I don't want to sleep because I don't want 

to wake and have to live again, and be

sorry for ten thousand things. Instead, 

I want to heal and help. I want 

to heal and help all things.