What I Can Do (poem) by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

So I can’t save the world – can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around every frightened child,
can’t foster peace among nations, can’t bring love to all who feel unlovable.

So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle with my insufficiency.
I practice walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love, I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth, about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.

One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big, I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear: to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May, knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.

To take love seriously. To give love wildly.
To race up to the world as if I were a puppy, adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference, of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,

as if the world depends on it.