Nature Does Not Succumb to Despair

Ensnared in a net of despair,
One looks for comfort anywhere
But finds no solace anywhere,
No reason to care.

A delicate snow rose
Bares its beauty to the frost.
Its perfume wafts fragrantly
Through the frigid winter air.

Mired in a slough of despair,
Shivering branches are bare,
Landscapes loom bleak and bare,
One sees no beauty anywhere.

The first green shoots of spring
Begin their slow ascent to the light.
Despite the storm that's left us more snow,
They've faith in the warmth that will come.

Drowning in a pool of despair,
You may feel that you've nothing to give,
You may feel that you've no reason to live.
You've nothing to share.

A week after that late March snowstorm,
Daffodils poke their diffident leaves
Resolutely out of the still chill soil,
Coaxed upward by the promise of spring.

Life perserveres through half-frozen earth,
Certain that summer and warmth will come.
Love can be the light that leads to our rebirth
As well, allowing us to flower, if we ascend to it.

Nature does not succumb to despair.

Seeing the Light for What It Is

Eagerly pulling my hand toward the fairground,
My young son's mind was already lassoed
By its thumping music, the tastebud teasing smells
Of cotton candy, funnel cakes and corn dogs,
And the lights.  his eyes were captivated
By their bright cacaphony of cavorting colors.
My memories of having been conned by carneys;
And of watching one bashing his battered wife
Against their trailer door when I once cut through
A fair's dark parking lot, kept my pace at a walk.

The spinning lights and the soul-snaring rhythm
Of the club scene held me in its grasp for awhile.
How I longed to possess the grace and confidence
To give myself to the music.  The only moves I knew
Though were the clumsy locksteps of loneliness.
How I envied the smooth men their lovely partners.
The times the band would take a break, the lights
Would cease to dazzle, and I'd glimpse on other faces
The same isolation I felt.  We drank to drown shyness
While yearning desperately to belong, to be loved.

Mammon's Temple is ablaze with colored lights.
It's ads say "you can't be a winner if you don't play."
The jangling bells whistles and the thrill of a jackpot
May change your life.  After all, don't you deserve it?
Games of chance use lights to promote instant riches
That beckon seductively as sirens ships to ruin.
The faces of the players are taut with an intensity
That takes hold of them as firmly as sexual desire.
The unbridled greed, the desperate need...to win
Enough to buy status, respect, freedom and love.

"I am the Light and the Lamp of the World,"
Asserts The Christ; yet I've seen how light is used
To seduce, cajole, scam and delude us.  Deceptive
Practices more worthy of the Prince of Darkness.
We come into being in the blindness of the womb;
Lovers slip into the evening shadows to embrace,
Or turn out the lights before they make love...or dream.
We rest and rejuvenate our body in darkness.
We hide our tears at night or use its cloak to dry them.
I've seen the light for what it is.  Draw the shades.

Fading into the Light

Having witnessed the pre-dawn miracle
Of my son's birth, I left the hospital
Raptly clutching the Polaroid image
Of him blanketed in blue swaddling,
His cheeks scratched by tiny fingernails
Clumsily flailing against the brightness,
The light that engulfed him after the slap
And the snip of his umbilical cord.

My Mother-in-Law's kitchen light was on.
My knock intruded upon her Sunday rite
Of communion with coffee and newsprint.
Gazing tenderly at my new son's picture,
She embraced her role shift from a mother
To grandmother, her love eminating
Already toward that image of a child
Who would come to mean so much to her.

The child whose name has now fled her memory.
A strong woman can accept growing old,
Embracing each year like a new grandchild,
Something to be lovingly fussed over.
Louise had never been that strong.  Childlike
In her vanity, she'd been an ornament
On the arm of both husbands she'd outlived.
She was happiest when dressed in fine gowns.

Never so devastated as on that day
When after having caused an accident,
She heard an officer refer to her
Via radio, with "Joe Friday" terseness
As "a confused elderly woman."
"Do I really look that old?" she asked us
Tearfully, as if our denials could help
Turn back the hands of time's ruthless advance.

Now Alzheimers is hastening her decline.
Her memories have lost their focus.
Images flee beyond recollection
Like photgraphs that have been left too long
Upon a desk for the sun's rays to caress,
Sapping them of their detail and color.
Clarity fades into a shroud of indistinct white
That wraps her thoughts in a befuddled haze.

Osteoporosis bends her body forward
Into a question mark that puctuates her
Confusion.  She hears words she no longer
Comprehends, has thoughts she's no longer able
To express.  As death approaches she'll curl up
Into a fetal-position, womb-secure.
When the brightness that spooks a newborn beckons,
She'll head toward the Light and be absorbed in it.