“Feeling Small” a poem
“I like feeling small,” he told me. “Nature has always made me feel small.”
He described the sense of wonder that feeling gave him.
“Having something bigger than the individual – I don’t care if you call it God, or nature, or something else – gives me focus because it reminds me that the time we have to impact others is fleeting.”
Now that he lived in a city, he intentionally looked for wonder in places he wouldn’t normally see it. “Information about the world is overwhelming. It always has an argumentative tinge. I try to have compassion for people I know and people I don’t know. I feel small and comforted among humanity.”
Listener Poet Beck Klassen
Cambia Sojourns Scholars
February 2022
Feeling Small
Trees make themselves known;
a fresh, powerful presence.
I feel small
in the forest around me.
Nature freely emanates
the inalienable gifts
of insignificance
(individual)
and significance
(collective).
Society makes itself known;
an overwhelming entanglement
of blame.
I carve out a space for myself
to feel small
in the humanity around me.
My small space of focus
Reveals life
(fleeting)
and relationality
(eternal).
