For the Ones Who Choose to Walk Toward Suffering

For the ones who choose to walk towards suffering

trying to scoop it up,
to tend it

to carry it even for a pulse – before handing it back;

who move again and again toward the seeing, the bending, the scooping

even when what is scooped

instantly, impossibly

spills out like sand between the hollows and knuckle cracks of our fingers

leaving us unsure

if we have done any good.

It is a different kind of scooping.

It is a different kind of good.

Maybe that’s why against our better knowing

we keep choosing to walk towards suffering

when every other impulse, every other voice, would have us stop.