By Maria Popova
How do we all live in a broken world? It helps to bless what is simple. It helps to appreciate everything for its unchanged purpose. And we still need help – help to hold on to the beauty in the midst of cruelty, help to remove the garments of confidence to be clearly shaped and help to see the diversity of the world clearly so that I can love more.
The help of a lifetime comes from John Keene's poem “The Beating” – a poem half between a Mantra and a Manifesto, reading the direction of Amiri Baran to be strong, invoking the Torch Whitman lit when “love the earth and the sun and the animals” and All the atoms of each other, all the while speaking with a voice that is original but has a sweet one about the universe. Read here to complement Zoë Keating's complete “Optimist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfxXko70k5gu
Hitting
about John hereLove everything
Love the sky and the sea, the trees and the rivers,
mountains and abysses.
Love animals, not because you are one.
Love your parents and your children,
Even if you don't have one.
Love your spouse or partner,
It doesn't matter what the name means to you.
Love until you make a cave in your river,
Until it is cited as a volcano.
Always love.
Love your enemies.
Love the enemies of your enemies.
Love those whose idea of love is hate.
Love lies and lies.
Love tattletales and hypercrits, hucksters and travelers.
Love thieves because everyone thinks
of stealing something at least once.
Love the rich man who lives only with nothing
your bag or purse.
Love the poverty of your empty wallet or purse.
Love your piss and sweat and shit.
Love your Chatter with each other and its proof that
bad.
Love your shadows and their silent suspicions.
Love your fears, yesterday and tomorrow.
Love your days so far.
Love your beginning and your end.
Love the fact that your end is something else in the beginning,
or it may be, by another person.
Love yourself, but not too much
that you cannot love everything and everyone.
Love everywhere.
Love when there is no love.
Love the spawn monsters
in every corner of the city and the valley below,
In all rural soils.
Love the wound that grows inside you and reveal it
with love.
Love the vessel of your body, your mind
salt garden.
Love Love.
“Hit” comes from Elixir which is Kenene The punks: new and selected poems (public library). Couple with ellen bass's grade ode in the charity section, then george saunders in george saunders on how to love the world more and rumi in the art of choosing love over dislike.
