While we might feel small, separate, and all alone, our people have never been more tightly tethered. The question’s not if we will weather this unkn… - Amanda Gorman

Scripture tells us to envision that: “Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, And no one shall make them afraid.

That even as we grieved, we grew,
That even as we hurt, we hoped,
That even as we tired, we tried.

COMPASS This year the size of a sea Sick to its stomach. Like a page, we are only legible When opened to one another. For what is a book If not foremost a body, Waiting & wanting — Yearning to be whole, Full of itself. This book is full Of ourselves. The past is one Passionate déjà vu, One scene already seen. In history’s form, we find our own faces, Recognizable but unremembered, Familiar yet forgotten. Please. Do not ask us who we are. The hardest part of grief Is giving it a name. The pain pulls us apart, Like lips about to speak. Without language nothing can live At all, let alone Beyond itself. Lost as we feel, there is no better Compass than compassion. We find ourselves not by being The most seen, but the most seeing. We watch a toddler Freewheel through warm grass, Not fleeing, just running, the way rivers do, For it is in their unfettered nature. We smile, our whole face cleared By that single dazzling thing. How could we not be altered.