The Quietly Singing Thing

When aloneness looms
like a giant shadow on the ceiling,
when it windmills its wings
and it screams in both your ears–
connection is still the true thing,
the quietly singing thing.
As air is always there in your lungs,
belonging is always close and true.
When you have dangled singly,
and flailed as if
separation could be credible;
when you have foolishly forgotten
your own dear clan of earthlings,
when, myopic, you have imagined
you are a star without a neighbor in the cosmos,
then above all, you must listen,
and deliberately fix your attention.
For belonging will call you,
though it be by whisper or by sign.
Connection will beckon you softly back
into the big-bodied whole.