Down

Down, lay down. Fold and refold the towel. Lay it once more on his brow, cool side down, and tuck part over his ear. Shhhh, I'm here. Settle down with the baby in the crook of your other arm while you wait for the next cry out from a dream-terror; feel the dryness of your eyes and the ache of your mind for sleep. Even though you're thirsty, ease the toddler down to your breast and feel the milk let down.

Down, under the night, are stirrings everywhere. Migrants shift through hot sands ingrained as a barren inner and outer landscape: empty promise, vessel to another land flowing, in which they float next to Death. Babes tuck one another into cardboard boxes, nibbling stolen food, giggling at stories under the stars' canopy and resiliently surviving against the odds of aeons. Hidden lovers trace each other's bodies beneath​ the cover of darkness, sacred and secret in their surrender to the transcendent alchemy of togetherness, each point of contact redefining all former notions of what is possible in Union.

Down, under the mystery, is something simple about being human: to live and keep living, with ourselves and each other, and create something more wonderful than we have known. There is pain and ecstasy and horror and amazement that moves around and through us and what we have made. There are personal and collective fears, hopes, trials, and triumphs that can define us. There are patterns of oppression and systems of subjugation that terrorize peoples, hegemonies and hierarchies that imprison generations. There are movements and revolutions that push, revolve, evolve. There are breakthroughs in humans and species that leave strewn trails of starstuff from which their descendants can build.

Down, down. Let your soul sink once more. Rise again and again when you're needed. Trust your weariness to tell you when to let it be or when to lend a hand. Know that your suffering is always understandable and never isolated. Believe that the small and the big work are the same. The key to keep going is to rest but not sleep, to work but not break, to focus and vision. The energetic undercurrent channels below it all. Feel it beneath you, suspending you. Dip down.