not one of us carrying a verdict 

estefaaano_writes 

-

the rain doesn't choose people.

it falls on the woman who just buried her husband,

and on the man who danced at his daughter's wedding this morning,

soaking both of them the same,

indifferent in the way only beautiful things

are allowed to be indifferent.

the wind from the sea touches everyone the same.

it moves through the hair of the grieving

and the hair of the joyous 

without stopping to ask which is which.

it has crossed too much open water to care

about the small distinctions we make between ourselves.

it pressed against the face of your mother

when she was young and didn't know yet

what her life would cost her.

it is pressing against your face right now.

this is the closest thing to immortality

any of us will ever be offered,

and we keep missing it

because we search for something

that knows our name.

the sun shines on everyone equally.

on the city that burned

and the city still standing.

on the convict eating his breakfast

and the martyr who has forgotten

what hunger feels like.

it does not dim for the suffering

or brighten for the good.

it gives the absolute measure of itself,

every morning, without resentment,

without memory of what we did yesterday.

if God wanted us to be different from one another,

He would have created that difference

before sending us into this world.

He would have made one throat for singing

and one throat for silence.

one hand worthy of holding

and one hand to be left empty.

but we arrived the same way,

small and unfinished and screaming,

not one of us carrying a verdict.

the difference came later.

we made it ourselves,

out of fear, out of convenience,

out of the ancient need

to decide who the rain is really for.

but the rain already answered that.

the wind already answered that.

every morning the sun rises

and answers it again,

and we go inside and draw the curtains

and return to our arrangements,

our hierarchies of deserving,

our watchful lists of who belongs

to which side of God's attention.

He already told us in the rain.

He already told us in the wind.

every morning He writes it again in light

across every face equally,

and every morning we find new ways

to not understand.

so we begin with what we were given.

we carry love the way the rain carries itself,

without deciding first

who is worth the weight of it.

we carry respect the way the wind carries salt,

not knowing whose lips it will eventually reach,

not needing to know.

and the world gives it back.

not always immediately.

not always from the people you offered it to first.

but it returns, how the rain returns,

how the sea keeps sending its wind inland

long after you have stopped standing at the shore.

what you release into the world

does not forget you.

it travels the distance the light travels,

touches the same variety of faces,

and somewhere, in its return,

it finds you again.

changed by everywhere it has been,

but still yours.

still carrying the intention

you sent out with it,

all that time ago,

when you decided to love without exception,

the way the world

has always loved you.