Kay Ryan writes a lovely poem that easily fills the grief spaces in our hearts as searchers continue to slog through the sludge, debris and pain caused by Saturday's mudslide. Somehow humans persevere, but each step demands intent and hopeful purpose. A poem: 

Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard

A life should leave

deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small —
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn’t
be so hard.

Kay Ryan was the 16^th Poet Laureate of the United States.

(S-R photo: A searcher uses a small boat to look through debris from a deadly mudslide Tuesday in Oso, Wash.)

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