Petty Love

[mount_oregano]

This sonnet is about my sister, who died in 2014 and would have been 66 years old today. Small love can do what big love can’t. The poem was published in UU World, Summer 2015.
 

Petty Love

God thinks too big, too many galaxies

to count, each one filled with billions of stars

and dramas at each one. God hardly sees

every sparrow who falls or stops to parse

the consequence of out-of-control cells

in a lung. God simply loves every one,

every cell and star, and nothing compels

second thoughts or divine hesitation.

We who love partially, with small design

and small cares, discriminate good from ill

because all of creation is not fine

if we cannot bend it to our own will.

Love small enough to curse a cell or sky

can have strength to grow watching someone die.