Perspective

On the bureau sits a sculpture of a cartoonishly fat woman:
legs five times longer than the torso, an ass that must hold
half of her body weight. It's all made with rags, which is not to say
it means something. There's a Vishnu on the wall, and a live dog
named Wilson, part dachshund, laying beneath a Buddha
and antique toaster. I'm noting these oddities
because today I'm having a hard time finding meaning
in certain parts of the world. I can't tell you my life is difficult.
And it goes without saying that many lives are difficult,
because many thousands of bodies washed up across a beach last week.

Which is a scene I could've dreamed and never forgotten.
This morning: what was said about perspective?

A year ago I was in Marfa, Texas talking to my father.
We had lunch and then rode motorcycles for nine hours
in the cold, and I drank sugary wine when we returned,
and because I can remember the dryness of the hangover
in my throat when I woke it doesn't seem like very long ago.
I've heard a year means something shorter as you grow up,
so like my grandmother's foot a wound is harder to heal,
or like the man who raped my friend
a hatred is slower to resolve.

What I don't understand is why love (I don't mean romance)
can so easily unravel. How did I hear someone say
she couldn't feel sorry for the Japanese
after what they did to dolphins?
Isn't this world just exploding? This world is just exploding.
I'm driving wedges too, so I can't judge harshly,
but what a time to abandon others because of beliefs.
I like what else was said this morning. "It's about love, right?
If it isn't, it should be." There isn't an answer, I'm finding,
just that call to love—and if you believe to, pray.