There Is a Small Kind of Sadness

There is a small kind of sadness.
Throw it away.
Don’t give it speeches
Or the time of day.

There is a great kind of sadness
In the heart of the wise,
Upright and deep.
It is the swelling rise

Of a wave from the best
In their soul that demands
Their best, that knows
The failures of the hands

And hearts, of the net 
Of the thoughts
Of the man and the world,
The painful onslaughts

From outside the window
Or within the little room.
You cannot dismiss
This sadness with a broom.

Raise it to its goal.
Use it to strengthen 
Your will, to brighten
Your thought, to lengthen

Your reach. Draw
Awareness of being
From the source of the good.
When we start clearly seeing,

Everything turns with its wheel
Toward good. We view
Everything in the field
Of force of earth and dew,

​Till every tear is wiped
From every cheek,
Shame from the land,
From the swift, tumbling creek.