We Are Connected Poem by Connie McManus

We are connected
in this world
by otherworldly threads.
We see another's death -
a violent death -
and we feel the pain of it,
our guts churn in roiling acid;
our minds decompress
into a mantle of darkness
with mourning
and tribulation.

We are connected
when the brilliance
of creativity
dazzles and delights
with ingenuity
and cleverness
and sparks us
with an otherworldly
gossamer thread,
that cuts through
the lusterless crust
of our daily grind;
yet so delicate
and tennuous
that it is severed
by a single word
of malice
and sends sorrow
thrumming
through our deepest parts.

We are connected
by the touch of mothers,
whose love for sons gone bad-
those sons whose blood
lay in dark pools
on sidewalks,
rolling through gutters
and vividly flashed
on the TV news -
those mothers,
with their love
unfeigned,
restore us from our
waywardness.
The tears of those
mothers
salt the earth of our
cities.
Their anger heats us all.

(Logan, Utah
October 1996)