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Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Isn't Breaking

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star
would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons
equals the collective weight of every animal
on earth. Including the insects. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible
until I consider how it is to swallow grief—
just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed
a neutron star. How dense it is,
how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.
How difficult it is to move then.
How impossible to believe that anything
could lift that weight.

There are many reasons to treat each other
with great tenderness. One is
the sheer miracle that we are here together
on a planet surrounded by dying stars.
One is that we cannot see what
anyone else has swallowed.

***

Watch and listen to Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer read this poem as a “cinepoem” here.

Syndicated from Gratefulness, the online magazine of the A Network for Grateful Living. This is a global organization offering online and community-based educational programs and practices which inspire and guide a commitment to grateful living, and catalyze the transformative power of personal and societal responsibility. This poem was first published in Braided Way.
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4 PAST RESPONSES

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Taha Ahmad Sep 16, 2022

This is the highest expression of grief and the best bridge to gratitude that I have ever read in my life! Speechless.

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Dr.Cajetan Coelho Jul 28, 2022

A very unique cinepoem - inspiring and thought-provoking, thanks. From cradle to coffin, life is a brief journey, declare several of our wise and elderly gems, who continue to remain young at heart. "There are many reasons to treat each other with great tenderness. One is the sheer miracle that we are here together on a planet surrounded by dying stars" - Rosemerry W. T.

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Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer Jul 18, 2022

Dear Good Folks at DailyGood, thank you for sharing my poem! There are two versions here, you have the most recent and somehow a very old version, too ... this here is the correct text, but on the home page there is text that includes a railway (which was the original, but I changed it several years ago ...) Sorry I let several versions into the world. How confusing! Can you please make them all this version (as it is on gratefulness.org). Thank you! Rosemerry

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Kristin Pedemonti Jul 17, 2022

Rosemerry is such a gift to our world. How she is so adept at bridging grief with gratitude and beauty.
Here's to being stardust together