Tenderness

Some days, we wake up realizing more keenly than usual, that it is a hard world we live in. We have responsibilities, requirements, and obligations.  That word in particular, has a ball and chain all by itself. And because we are grown ups, we face this truth about the world. We put away our night wanderings, swing our feet over the side of the bed and head for the shower.
 

 Outside, in our backyards, or down the street at the little park, or maybe even in the back city alley of our apartment, it is also a hard world. The responsibilities, requirements and obligations there are more elemental, but the goals are the same as ours: facing the realities of living. We both  know providing for ourselves and others has purpose, dignity and selfhood woven throughout it.
Living though, does not only teach survival. It has also taught us when we deal only with existing, we seal over our access to other essential dimensions of being human. We discover it hardens our heart, snuffs out its natural impulse to break open, to feel tender and fragile. For all  its show of strength and survival of the fittest, the Real World still remains in countless ways, a fragile, tender place. And so can we.

Once only, and then in a dream,
I watched while, secretly
and with the tenderness of any caring woman,
a cow gave birth
to red calf, tongued him dry and nursed him
in a warm corner
of the clear night
in the fragrant grass
in the wild domains
of the prairie spring, and I asked them,
in my dream I knelt down and asked them
to make room for me.
Mary Oliver, Ghosts