If people did not push back
Or dodge
Or ignore
Or defend
When they are corrected,
I think I would like them better.
I think it has colored my view—
In a bad way—
That so many of them do.
And having wanted at first
Simply to help,
I can find myself
Quickly the grouch
At all the blowback
Of this incorrigible world.
It is far too easy to forget that they—
Whom I aggravate by
Asking them to fix
What they won’t
Ask themselves to fix—
Are still humans,
As much in need of
Affable kindness
As am I myself.
Surely, I can learn
To see this world
In some better way.
—
