
COURAGE
January 12, 2014
courage as a buzzword
awakens our fog-addled prisons
we applaud courage as we define it
Raw nerved, steel jawed, icy eyed
Superman
But sometimes courage
doesn’t uncover itself as
a heavily muscled flexed arm or a gritted
tooth
but as two firm feet landing bedside
the morning after heartbreak
Occasionally, courage doesn’t reveal itself
with a dripping firemans coat
but with a stoic wipe away of tears
after the soldier hands her the tri-folded flag
Courage looks a thousand ways
today it may look like a combat fatigue
belly down in foreign sand
and tomorrow like the aged woman
spending twenty minutes to look her best
after the doctor has told her she’s near her end
Courage knows no age, no race, no gender, no place
It comes from an aged space in us that we had no idea existed
From an infants steps between mother and fathers outstretched hands
To a frail human shell walking to God’s outstretched hands
It takes a million human forms and a billion different shapes
And in the end, how we face the end only proves that
courage endures