difference is our commonality

 all on various spectrums

we are all so very different,

we often grasp at the illusion 

that boundaries and definitions are clear and sharp,

just listen to our politics these days!

we are challenged to be open-minded toward others 

and sometimes as we should be toward ourselves,

we can feel estranged when we're on a path less taken,

sorrow can thrive in the conflict 

between what is, and our hopes,

consider the hours of therapy that can go toward resolving

the conflict between expectation and reality,

particularly that between parent and child,

I feel for those not easily defined,

those who know themselves to be different

from what others can cavalierly assume about them,

I keep feeling that there are many spectrums upon which

the luck of the die drops every one of us,

we must expand and open what we feel

so that we can make empathic leaps of love into the other,

so that we can know that whoever they are,

that however the universe manifests itself as they are,

they are as true to rightness

as any of us could hope to be,

we are all on a spectrum,

we are all on various spectrums,

and we need to appreciate 

how much difference is also our commonality,

a step toward truth is to imagine that others are like us,

but that step can be on a slippery slope

upon which we can fall 

and lose the empathic leap into the other,

we are then even worse off

because we think we are open

and instead we are really 

centered on our own self.

by Henry H. Walker

September 4, ‘25