Poetry: We Must Love

We must love

We must love broken things, love them wholly
Love the cuts and the bruises in need of healing
Love the wrinkled stillborn child

Love the aging woman who forgets your name

Love the junkie and the sex worker, the dreamers and the teenagers

Love the conservative who wonders if he belongs

Love the man blasting ACDC in the park because he cannot hear your words

Love Jesus when he shows up stumbling drunk to repair the roof

Love the cardless immigrant who does not sign the book

Love the unvaccinated seekers who remain beyond doors
Love the gardener who plants the seeds

Love the children whose naptime cries sneak up through office vents

Love the man who brings you his words
Love his hands, reaching out, holding yours

Love the traveler just passing through who asks you to pray
Love the people who cannot hear who sing out off-key

Love the lonely mother who shows up unannounced

Love what cannot, will not, be turned away

Love the miracles of being wherever you are

Love the broken hearts, the unfinished poems, the lost dreams

Love the anger and the hurt and the letting go

Love the people who did not become what they thought they could be
Love the city and the mountains and the streams

Love life- all of it- what is beautiful and ugly and torn

Love what is left when everything has been taken away

Love love love the holiness that remains