All of them needed to know —
needed a way to look up
from their burdened lives,
from their crashed or crushed visions,
the dysphoric drag of suffocating stories,
they needed a better way
to catch a breath
than the scrabbled pushing aside
of some of the worst weights

All of them — the ones thought fortunate
and the ones thought down and out,
needed something more,
needed this —
the bright assurance
welling from within,
the blessed kinship
with all that’s light and lovely,
the solid truth about their royal being,
never held down,
supplying all their needs.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 25, 2019