Exploring foolishness and kind service with each other.

Written at WRITE ON!Permalink

Written at WRITE ON! is a series of articles written by participants during a WRITE ON! workshop, and shared with the community.

This was written by Hy Carrel during a WRITE ON workshop on June 3, 2025. The staff of the Buffalo Urban Resiliency Center invited Community Canvases’ Kind Fools to facilitate WRITE ON with their Women’s Empowerment Group in September 2024, May 2025 and June 2025. This piece was written on the shores of Lake Erie and in the presence of these inspiring and wise women.

In this piece, Hy uses a metaphor to describe the type of presence we aspire to provide for one another during Kind Fools programs.

To Be a BrookPermalink

To listen like a rolling brook
To hear with clear waters
To provide a window into the abyss
Such that the bottom appears close

To be a pool of depth that can hold any story
Yet feel inviting for a dipped toe or an idly paddled canoe

To know that there are wild rapids upstream,
And a serene lake downstream
But right here, the stream moseys over moss covered stones,
Homes for crayfish
Cleaning the waters of debris.

Come, let your stories bathe
In the cool flow of this creek.
You may leave lighter and more hopeful
The buoyant consistency accepts your burdens
In its effortless journey toward the lake.

Fed by melting ice in the mountains
Its waters are ever pure
Becoming a trickle in the fall
Surging forth in the thaw
They swell as you pour and pour
Never muddying, being present even more

The stream is here for the thirsty
Nurturing plants and fish for the hungry
Tempering the winter’s chill
Providing relief from the summer’s heat
And suckling fruit trees on either bank

Sitting and listening to the waters’ rumble
One dissolves into peaceful meditation.
As you share into the flowing waves
Your feelings of grief and strife,
May you once again taste
The sweet nectar of life.


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