Pick up your things

“Man is indeed that creature who, if he sees an object on the floor and wants to see it on the table, is obliged to lift it.” 

Simone Weil, from “On Science, Necessity and the Love of God,” (1941).

Love is not a destination

but a direction

and an exhausting climb.

To be human is to lift whatever has fallen:

To pick up your things,

like your mother said, your father said,

Pick up your things!

They were only saying:

Be everything.

Move everything.

Be everything humanly possible.

Love is a direction and the energy

to move everything in that loving direction

and not to be astonished, frozen

because you are not there yet.

Do not be paralyzed by fear.

Don’t be anesthetized

by the ordinary poisons of the world.

The world is full of those darts

that they use

to put tigers to sleep.

If you are stuck,

your feet buried

up to the ankles,

to your knees,

Then lift them

Love is a direction. So love yourself

and others and the world.

Forgive what you can.

And lift your feet.

And when you see something

or someone who has fallen—

lift them.

These are your things.

Pick up your things!