wandering courage

so lately
i've been wondering
about courage....

i wonder if it's courage that makes
the small thrushes sing
in the grey of dawn,
after a fire....

or courage that keeps
the one tiny ember glowing,
unaccountably,
after a dousing....

is courage the persistence
to keep getting up,
after all hope of persistence
has gone?

maybe the waves show courage
when, after the thundering hurricane,
they show up all turquoise and glossy
the next day....

maybe the great horned owl shows courage
as it calls out softly from its high perch
into the deeply black silence
of the night forest....

•

soldiers tell me they don't feel courageous
as they rush forward into war....
yet they go --
and that must be courage....

i've cared for children
who, as they receive their chemotherapy,
exude streams of unknowing courage
from their very fingertips....

i wonder if sitting in the midst
of not knowing, of waiting
of learning to get up each day
forgoing hope --

i wonder if
the willingness to stand
in the chill wind of
the vast unknown --

if that is not courageous, too....

•

i feel a kinship
with all things crushable....

tiny spiders under my feet,
small lizards, lying exposed on my front steps,
delicate lavender petals floating down
from the jacaranda tree....

on this planet,
all are tiny,
fragile,
crushable.....

but like the white diamond stars,
we glow in pitchest black....

maybe just waking up
to this

is where courage lives....

__________________
©2011
beth anne boardman