Newspaper ink dyes my fingers
Good news and bad stain alike
Black and pungent insistence
Truth at my fingertips
The rub that resists removal:
Every situation has a right to be
Harder to see are the stains I leave
Good news and bad bear my prints
How I’ve aided, fought, ignored or condoned
Mother to it all, front page to back,
Every headline whispers complicity
Mirrors my whorl on the world
___________________
Copyright Deborah McGlauflin, May 15, 2017
This poem is a Mother’s Day riff on a line from a teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama: “Every situation has a right to be.” It’s been a real struggle for me to understand and accept that, but I’ve learned the truth of it. He’s saying that every situation is the result of a complex web of causes and conditions, of which we are all a part. So when something good or bad happens, we should accept it and deal with it as it is. That does not mean one has to condone anything. One is free to take action to change the causes and conditions without wasting time pointing fingers and whining about what brought things to their current point. The essence of his teaching is a smiling and compassionate “acknowledge your hand in it, take responsibility, and deal with it.” Not an easy lesson to live.