Monday

(MLK Day 2025)

The days have been dark, and I
don't know what else to do to lift
that kind of darkness. So I was going 
to mail a care package to my daughter. 
Little things— a box of tea, two 
sweet buns and snacks from the Filipino 
bakery. I forgot the post office 
is closed, and the UPS store; children 
aren't in school; federal workers have 
a day off. It's freezing cold again:
we leave the hot water tap on as a thin 
drizzle. All morning, I have felt
the sort of heaviness that sometimes
remains, even after a long bout 
of crying. I listen to a livestream 
where the panelists speak of ways 
we might lift each other up when we 
feel like that. One of them says, 
hard as it seems, we must laugh 
together, even be silly. Feed each
other, come together, hold 
each other up. We can still burn 
bright as the burning hills. We 
can burn even brighter.