If You Want to Save the World, Get Over Yourself

If You Want to Save the World, Get Over Yourself
(For Ellyzabeth Adler)
White, black, red, yellow, man, woman, varied indications of sex, ethnicity, and religion,
you don’t have to explain these words to me each time we meet. I can remember them.
Little Red Riding Hood can be the bedtime story I love without further explanation.
I don’t need to check off boxes to commune with your soul or ask you to leave things behind.
We can leave each other complete.

Time was our grandparents couldn’t come into this building, but for different reasons.
We only need one reason to enter today. So let’s build a broad building with wide shoulders
and call it only a place to gather, at a certain place and time. We could meditate there
on He who called us to open our arms wide: not because we want to, not for convenience,
because each day, even on the way to work,
we can save the world.