Love and Resilience Response – Kim D. Brandon

Love and Resilience

These are challenging times. It feels like we are at war within our own country. The emotional fatigue feels never-ending. It’s times like these when I look to poetry to help me get reconnected to a sense of love for self, for family, for community, for the world. Today we take turns comforting each other while carrying each other’s fears.  We take turns keeping watch with an ear out for approaching trouble.  I think about the line in Lucille Clifton’s poem Won’t You Celebrate With Me, the line where she says my one hand holding tight my other hand. I think of the sheer resilience of that line and how you must walk yourself home. For me, this means reconnecting with myself with my higher source. 

Poetry reminds me of who I am and that I am love, I am joy, I am peace. I am safe knowing exactly who I am gives me a sense of resilience, a quiet loving power that helps me comfort myself and my community. 

Love reminds me to write that love poem like the world is waiting for it today. I wrote a poem called The Quilt. It speaks to when you have gathered all the fabric and the backing and sewn together your family quilt. It says don’t hang the quilt or store it away, instead grab your family and wrap them in the quilt. That’s the love. I hope that one day, someone turns to one of my poems to shelter themselves from their emotional storms. Storms too heavy to carry alone.  

In the meantime, there are so many poems that I turn to for fortitude. Poems that give me the endurance to ride out most storms.  Especially ones with lines like…my one hand holding tight my other hand. Now that’s love and resilience!