Temptation
It is so tempting to believe
But it is only an illusion
That we can hold the world up
For our children
That we can carry it on our shoulders
While we carry them in our arms
So that it dares not lay a finger on them
Forgetting entirely that
They belong to her
To this world and its surroundings
They were given by her, as were we, and our precious, fragile bodies coexist together for however long is gifted.
We know this
Do we know this?
The temptation is strong
And our shoulders weaker.
Eventually we learn
That the world is carried by strengths beyond our own
And that it is the world who carries us.
It cannot be otherwise.
So we crack
And allow our cracks to widen
And in them we pour all the fragments of unrelenting grief
From the jarring truth
That we cannot carry the world on our shoulders
Neither could our parents
Or their parents
Or those before them.
We can only carry our children in our arms
Until, reluctantly, our arms give way
And their feet tread solidly
On the surface of this earth
To which they belong, from whose bounty they were born, and into whose arms they will gently return.
