It’s all about balance

We step on the first rung.

Step after step
we reach for the circle
like children playing hopscotch;
they throw a round stone into
a square and hop to it.

The children play and cheer each other on.

We reach for the circle of ourselves,
not the brilliance of a star
but the dull reality, the muddy riverbeds
where lotus flowers grow.

The ladder gives us the chance to hold
and support those who climb up and
out of their war-torn lives.

It is about balance,
how we lend ourselves
after the devastation.

Note that this is the artist’s statement that I rearranged to appear like a poetry.

Ladder: Art and statement by Irene Koronas. She is the Poetry Editor for Wilderness House Literary Review. She is a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and has exhibited her work in Boston and Tokyo.

An entry in Compassion Project: An Anthology. It is an organization that promotes compassionate thought and action through the arts. The editors solicit artists and writers, young and old, of all levels and abilities, to define compassion through images, essays, stories and poems.  They are interested in works about compassion in all its meanings, such as: kindness, courage, healing, and empathy in human and/or animal interactions as well as environmental conservation.  The editors/curators of The Compassion Project ask contributors to integrate compassion into the creative process and produce work that will inspire others to think and act compassionately.

The Compassion Project is partnered with the Charter for Compassion, an international organization working to establish and sustain cultures of compassion locally and globally through diverse initiatives—education, cities, business, religious and spiritual communities, and the arts.