… Zion said,”The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”  Isaiah 49:14-16 (ESV)

A Loved One
Out with the old and in with the new, so it goes every year?
They say you are but one of many, like any other.
Like any other step treading the stair,
any other hand on the rail,
another body through the turnstile.
You are, they say, of a milieu,
and in time, lost in the billions.
Yet at this moment in real time and in a real place,
you are still,
pausing to behold:
that one perfect autumn leaf;
that one crystal snowflake;
that brilliant spring flower;
that shimmering droplet of morning dew.
Your heart tells you that you do not believe
what they say about this leaf, flake, flower, dewdrop,
nor about yourself.

There was a real time and in a real place when
you were not simply one of a bunch
But Someone.

Your heart is mute about atoms and particles.
Your soul feeds on memories of family
whose eyes continually caressed you, their little wonder.
Despite this white-coated world
you feed on this self, oh vibrant, unique one.
Stay deaf to those lies
which would starve your soul–and awake to love’s wonders.

– Charity Johnson, 2010