To Be Gentle by Emily A. Pastor

To be gentle
in a world that is not
is a supernatural inclination.

Nuts; beetles; crabs;
the earth teems with those
transparent in their fear
that the reward of tenderness is death.
They hide their hearts in the hardness of
evolutionary inventions
panaceas to trepidations,

and do we also not hide?
Stupid, soft mammals that we are?
Running from our own susceptibility
until that day our legs turn dust?

What then separates us
from the shelled
and thorny?
What is revolution in a realm
of predator and prey?

Gentleness
is a supernatural inclination
in a world where none
(not even the armored)
are spared.

Emily A. Pastor is a poet and painter whose written work centers on themes of mental illness and grief within motherhood. Emily is a classically-trained fine artist and believes that God uses beauty for our healing and wholeness. She and her husband homeschool their three children in the woods of Oregon.