For the Sake of Strangers BY DORIANNE LAUX

No matter what the grief, its weight, we are obliged to carry it. We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength that pushes us through crowds. And then the young boy gives me directions so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open, waiting patiently for my empty body to pass through All day it continues, each kindness reaching toward another- a stranger singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees offering their blossoms, a child who lifts his almond eyes and smiles. Somehow they always find me, seem even to be waiting, determined to keep me from myself, from the thing that calls to me as it must have once called to them this temptation to step off the edge and fall weightless, away from the world.

San Antonio by Naomi Shihab Nye

San Antonio Tonight I lingered over your name, the delicate assembly of vowels a voice inside my head. You were sleeping when I arrived. I stood by your bed and watched the sheets rise gently. I knew what slant of light would make you turn over. It was then I felt the highways slide out of my hands. I remembered the old men in the west side cafe, dealing dominoes like magical charms. It was then I knew, like a woman looking backward, I could not leave you, or find anyone I loved more. -- Naomi Shihab Nye, from Is This Forever, or What? Poems and Paintings from Texas.

Calling All Grandmothers by Alice Walker

We have to live differently. or we will die in the same old ways. Therefore I call on all Grand Mothers everywhere on the planet to rise and take your place in the leadership of the world. Come out of the kitchen out of the fields out of the beauty parlors out of the television Step forward and assume the role for which you were created: to lead humanity to health, happiness and sanity. I call on all the Grand Mothers of Earth and every person who possesses the Grand Mother Spirit of respect for life and protection of the young to rise and lead. The life of our species depends on it. & I call on all men of Earth to gracefully and gratefully stand aside & let them (let us) do so.

Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry by Howard Nemerov, (1920 – 1991)

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned to pieces of snow Riding a gradient invisible From silver aslant to random, white, and slow. There came a moment that you couldn't tell. And then they clearly flew instead of fell.