Needing a Sign

Restlessness accompanies me
on the sojourn today –
unfazed by ripe red
belly of robin,
or shimmering emerald
of breeding merganser’s crown.

My lens seeks out decay –
rotting wood, darkened cavities –
as if my soul craves reassurance
that life persists even where death
hovers – I need a sign.

Discontent, I move on –
drive the river road,
snail pace – praying for
something to shake
this malaise –
birds come and go,
trees radiate Spring green,
I pause, unmoved.

And then I spot it –
across the river, high up –
a massive hulk –
lens raises, adjusts, snaps –
the regal hunter turns towards me,
regards me with ferocious intensity,
does not falter on his perch –

All-seeing, fearless,
he is spirit-manifested,
a messenger, lifting me
from stagnation –
momentary redemption.

(Linking up with my weekly challenge:  in-between.)

 

 

 

Discord

Does illness have a voice,
and if so; is it melancholy,
or dark and dank, divulging
deepest despair, or revealing
a vileness of nature?

Discord creeps along my veins,
disrupts muscles, systems failing
under the oppression –
“Stay strong,” friends counsel,
cannot hear the gathering storm,
feel the heaviness cloaking me.

I am not myself, but then;
who am I?  Is disease a mutation
of the original sin – punishment
for fatal sins, or  redemption
wrapped as trial – the whispers
gain clarity – I am faltering…

(Written for Reena’s Exploration challenge:  featured image as prompt.)

Losing Ground

In corners, I scrounge –
resilience fading;
hope, it seems, is sleeping.

Living a quarter life,
even ascents depressed;
dubious that alternatives
are worthwhile.

Walls would suffice –
once dreamt of co-habitating
with abundance,
now housed with constraints.

Age losing preferences,
counting worries either way.

Don’t Tell

No one told me,
in my haste to grow up,
that adulthood, awash
with responsibility,
would still be lonely.

And, no one told me
that the days and nights
of sweating over papers
would likely not lead
to the life imagined,

nor that commitment –
the kind portrayed in movies –
does not exist – the word, itself,
bearing more substance
than the act – a fickle sentiment.

No one told me that
motherhood – the act
of giving birth – would alter
my reality permanently,
colouring it with unfathomable
pain and joy – such juxtaposition.

And, no one told me that
every battle I ever arm myself for,
regardless of its justification,
is really a struggle with self –
inner demons the most menacing.

I never imagined that age –
with seismic force,
would alter my perspective so –
leave me barren and yet enriched,
enthralled with the ordinary,
and unfazed by the rest.

And, in the end, as I watch
vernal rains announce a new season,
in the quiet of my solitude, I am
amazed and grateful for all
that this crazy, driven life has become,
and that no one ever told me.