Thanks so much for your feedback on April’s Poem of the Month, Leadership! Your words of praise put my “doing” brain to work and as a result, from me…

All 50 Governors received a letter with a copy of the poem in it.
Mayors of the largest 116 cities in the United States received the same.
A couple of days later I sent a letter and the poem to all 100 Senators.
And finally, I selected 114 Congressmen and Congresswomen to be the recipient of a letter and the poem.

The subject of May’s Poem of the Month, I believe, is a natural next step in the chain of subjects about which each and every one of us must certainly be aware. It is Interdependence! Our interdependence on others was demonstrated admirably this past couple of months.

The Covid-19 Pandemic has shown us just how incredibly interdependent all mankind is… all of us around the globe play a very important part in each other’s lives, whether we have ever met or not. Think about it.

A big thank you to the Front Line workers (medical, police and fire); to all the “essential” workers who risked exposure, and to all of you who safely distanced and washed your hands and didn’t touch your face.

We cannot survive without each other, and this Pandemic has brought this fact home to all of us.

Please enjoy the Poem of the Month for May. It was such a pleasure to write.

INTERDEPENDENCE

“Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature!”
Did you understand the words in the above line?
“Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature!”
They’re the wise words of the Dalai Lama, not mine.

Interdependence means that what affects you directly
Will affect everyone else in an indirect way.
We are all individual parts of a magnificent whole,
Combining our efforts with others’ to make headway.

“No man is an island, entire of itself…”
John Donne, a 16th century poet, made this statement.
We belong, all of us, to one human family,
Surrounded by nature and our environment.

The further a person drifts away from nature
The less able he is to practice interdependence.
As our interdependence increases, on the whole,
We do better when others do better; there’s evidence.

Interdependence is a device only independent people can make;
There is no such thing as a “self-made” man!
We are all made up of thousands of others’ inputs —
Kind deeds, or words of encouragement, help us do what we can.

“Before you even ate breakfast this morning,
You’ve depended on more than half the planet.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., said those words; and he’s right!
(And you’ve depended upon many more by sunset.)

All people and things are interdependent.
No nation can solve its problems alone.
We need each other, and the sooner we learn it,
We’ll survive the storm together, truth be known.

Resolution of the problems is dialogue, and lots of it,
When people, or countries, or cultures collide.
With honesty and courage and an ear to listen,
Dialogues occur and differences subside.

We should be evolving with a new world view
That maintains one simple proposition:
That all of nature — humans, animals, earth —
Are interconnected and interdependent, and not in opposition.