What the World Needs Now Are Invisible Friends
Helpers Known and Unknown, Seen and Unseen Please Hear This Call
Calling all ancestors, angels, alebrijes, and gentle dragons.
SOS to awkward aunties, misfit toys,
crones that were called “witch,”
healers whose gifts were not understood while they were living.
Alert to every day teachers,
librarians, midwives and babysitters,
those who were generous and patient
through hells and high water
though we may have forgotten them.
Zombies, step down.
Evil doers, slumber deep.
This is a call, a prayer,
an incantation for Love.
A call to the invisible True Friends.
Come please now.
Come from wherever you are;
through weft and weave,
from heavens, forest and seas.
Slip from the pages of forgotten books,
step from the smoke between worlds,
from mists over snow,
manifest from our tears.
We need you now
in our backpacks, pockets and purses.
We need you to hold our hand,
to spoon with us while we sleep.
When we are frightened,
please walk with us down the path,
stroke the top of our head when we do not know the answer,
whisper to us, “it’s okay.”
Will you tell us please,
how you survived the war?
How food was not always plentiful?
How narrowly you escaped the plague
but how many loved ones did not?
How you grieved deeply
with people and animals and the earth itself
through times of abuse, enslavement
loneliness and greed?
Remind us please
of good climbing trees,
slow storytelling,
and that sitting calmly with sadness makes us more gentle creatures.
Share with us the ways we are beautiful without a filter,
and the secrets of finding messages of love
in the stars and wind,
between cracks in the walls,
through heat from a flame,
anywhere other than our screens.
Remind us that we are never alone —
even when we cannot see any friends around us.
Ordinary helpers,
magical winged ones,
slow, kind and gentle spirits,
we need you now.
Not just from four or seven or 1000 directions
but from the infinity beyond space and time.
We need, simple okayness
tucked with us into bed at night
so we can dream
of the goodness
that is to come.
