In my meditation these days, I keep seeing and feeling the daily growth of my two Amaryllis plants.  Each has its own rhythm, and reach.  One is now two feet tall, and the other has settled gently in at one.  I’m struggling with the photo of five year old Liam Conejo Ramos in a blue knit hat with white bunny ears and pompoms.  I can’t believe I live in a country where this is happening.  

I’m also with a poem by Ilya Kaminsky, “Psalm For the Slightly Tilted”.  

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/01/26/psalm-for-the-slightly-tilted-ilya-kaminsky-poem

I live in a county with a high percentage of seniors, and I’m struck by this last stanza of the poem as it feels so true of the protests I’ve attended.

These are your coffee-stained saints

who rise not with trumpets

but with Advil.

They stand

and wait

creased like maps

of a country

that doesn’t exist anymore.