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