“By morning she has lost
a husband, a home, a dream,
a night of her life
that will never return.
She tries not to think
of what she will do,
of what this means
in the long history of loss.
There are tigers dying,
she knows, nuclear threats
that might eradicate
the world.
Forests are disappearing
and seas are being emptied.
She tries not to think
of her hunger
against the magnitude of all this.
Her small hunger against
the failure of civilizations.
She thinks instead
of evening,
how once again
it will grow long and bright,
how eternity that seemed
so paltry just minutes ago
could become eternal once again.
She thinks of the moon
rising in the cleft of the distant hills.
It is the only comfort
she allows herself–
to relinquish the things she loves
as if they were never hers.”
From Here, Poems for the Planet by Tishani Doshi
Chorlton Unitarians 