We wanted even then
to change the world:
a daunting undertaking,
not to be accomplished
in a night, a week,
a season of marching
in the streets with banners
and bullhorns and signs.
But the teacher said, Start
with this place: your feet
on the soil, the feel
of fabric on your skin;
those high-pitched sounds
that could be the wind
or something human
unraveling; the knobbed
outline of a whelk
scored on your heart.
Until you know how the world
calls to you through every
broken thing, nothing
will change: nothing.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.