DESIDERATA FOR HARD TIMES

by Kay White Drew


Be kind, though their assertions make you cringe.
Be compassionate, though you do not understand.
Be at ease, though anguish stalks you in the night.
Be hopeful, though the evidence laughs at hope.
Be steadfast, though the ground trembles beneath you.

I want to help, though I’m not sure how.
I swallow my contempt, though they seem to demand it.
I strain to understand, though things make no sense.
I mourn those lost, even those whose intransigence took them down.
I work toward a better world, though I won’t live to see it.


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Kay White Drew, a.k.a. Katherine White, M.D., is a retired neonatal physician and lifelong writer. Her essays and poems appear in several anthologies and online journals, including Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and the Coin Operated Press zine, Depression Walks. Things that keep her sane in these trying times: writing, meditation, conversations with the people she loves, and spending time outdoors. She lives in Rockville, MD, with her husband.